our fate rests with you
by chinarai
Summary: It seems impossible to work against a legendary evil together and stay as mere acquaintances, and while Keith doesn't want to assume they were close, something in his chest tells him he might just be right. He looks again at the castle, at the ominous darkness swirling around the white structure. Whoever Prince Takashi Shirogane really is, Keith is going to save him. botw AU
1. a chancellor's request

This is... yet another fic that I have already posted on AO3. I have a lot there, tbh, someday I'll post them here too alsfjkalfI'm just gonna copy and paste the first a/n

If you're familiar with Zelda, BotW or not, you'll know there are a lot of races in the games. I moved things around from both Voltron and Zelda to better fit this universe, you'll see what I mean. And places - most places mentioned in the show became a village/province of this version of Hyrule. Almost every character that has been relevant at some point makes an appearance. This is more developed than any project or work I had to do back in college and I'm not even kidding.

I took Breath of the Wild's story as base, but some things from the game I skipped and others I changed completely. So if you've played, you will recognize dialogue lines and some elements, but you won't see a lot of stuff, like shrine/side quests.

I don't have much of this written yet, but I have a lot planned and decided, and since I know myself, I'm not going to promise any kind of updating schedule.

Also, I can't stop picturing Shiro saying "yahaha! you found me" at the end of s6 fml

A big thanks to my friend Mari for helping me with a lot of stuff!

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 **i. a chancellor's request**

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The distant voice is the first thing he hears in what feels like years.

Up until now, he hadn't realized it was quiet, very much so, and dark. He tries to move his fingers, but doesn't know if he accomplishes something that simple. His body registers nothing, only a faint echo in his brain and something that flickers in the darkness of his mind.

"- eyes..."

A luminous dot appears in the distance and steadily grows to a vibrant sparkle. Where is he and why is it so dark? He tries to remember, but finds that he can't, his mind still struggling to catch up with his awakening. Then the light explodes in a blinding yellow and, for the first time in forever, his body moves. His heavy lids part, white consumes all of his vision, there is an unending ringing in his ears and a pounding in his head that matches its tempo.

"Open your eyes…"

He blinks the whiteness away, slowly dissipates and reveals the soothing blue lights on the ceiling. Something tickles his bare skin, seeping away and leaving only a ghost of a sensation in its place. The ringing has faded, a long hissing sound taking its place as the air that had been surrounding him rushes out of the confined space.

"Wake up, Keith…"

Keith stays there for a moment, staring up at the overhead lights and waiting for his brain to register what his eyes see. The room is too big to house only one person at a time, yet there is no one else here with him. Very sparsely furnished, but well decorated; white constellations glow on the walls, and the structure that glows blue above the pod blooms from the ceiling like roots.

Craning his neck, Keith looks around the dimly lit room, at the intricate patterns on the pillars and the pod he'd been sleeping on, if one could call it that. Bumps rise on his flesh caused by the slight chill of the room, and he brushes away hair from his face before unsticking himself from the back of the pod to step out of it. His legs wobble a little, but he can move without just fine. Keith checks his limbs, finds himself to be unscathed and whole, and mostly naked save for a pair of dark spandex shorts.

The voice has been quiet for a while now. It wasn't something that he heard coming from the room, but rather it was inside his head, which feels odd. Keith thinks he should remember this place, for he wouldn't have come to an unfamiliar place to sleep, but he can't recall. It's disturbing how the memory escapes him. Perhaps it's because he has just woken up?

Another two smaller, glowing structure are just ahead, small pedestals, and he decides to investigate them rather than think about it. One of them reacts to him once he approaches, the round surface on top whirls and rotates, presents him with a black rectangular device.

It's a tablet, he realizes upon further inspection, the name coming after a few seconds of examination. Smoothing his thumb across the screen, it flickers to life. The figure emblazoned on the back alludes to a V and shines silver. Keith holds it at arm's length and lowers it down to look around him once more. What is he supposed to do with it? Why was it left here with him? Can he call anyone with this?

He brings it closer to his face, squints his eyes at the tiny letters on the side of the screen. "Voltron?"

What does it even mean?

"That is the Voltron Slate." The foreign voice supplies, deep and strong, yet gentle somehow. Keith looks around him, but the voice really is just inside his head and it tickles at something, at all the empty spots he notices as the seconds pass. "Take it. It will help you find your way in your journey."

Keith holds it in his hands gingerly as if it's made of the finest glass and moves over to the other pedestal. "Bring the Slate closer to the pedestal." The voice instructs and he does that, watching as the V in the center splits in two and a knife rises from within the structure.

He picks is up, twirls it around in his hands, inspecting the blade against the pad of his thumb and S shape on the hilt, and holds it by the hilt, uncertain, due to a lack of where to keep it. A door he hadn't noticed before opens once the knife is out of the pedestal, the ground humming beneath his feet. On the other side he finds crates and chests, and a worn out, dusty outfit he puts on top of the spandex shorts. There is a pouch to keep the Slate and a holster he straps to his leg and slips the knife inside. Now he's dressed, but no less lost than he had been five minutes ago, and Keith still doesn't know who is talking to him and how they are doing it.

A pedestal is by another larger door at the end of the hall, and he brings the tablet close to it just as he thinks he hears that someone taking in a breath. The blue of the pedestal shifts into silver, and a sound comes from within it, robotic and genderless, before the door opens again, letting in a blinding stream of light that makes Keith shield his eyes.

"Keith. I ask you to finish what I started. You are Terra's only hope." The voice says. "I believe in you. Now, go. Be great."

"Wait!" He calls out, a touch of desperation seeping through. "What is going on? What do I have to do?"

But his calls are met with nothing. The voice doesn't answer him and all he hears are the echoes of his own questions in this place. At least, Keith has the knife so he isn't completely defenseless, even if he can't remember for the life of him if he knows how to fight. He will have to trust his instincts, even if they are more jumbled than his thoughts in this very moment.

The only way to proceed now is to go up the stairs and face whatever is waiting out there for him. Whatever it is… And though it was less than clear, it's not hard to guess the voice gave him an important task. Terra is where he is, isn't it? It has to be a town or a province or… Maybe a kingdom. Can Keith put together an entire kingdom by himself when he can't remember what happened yesterday? Why does it even need his help anyway? Keith shakes his head and goes outside, fists clenched by his sides in determination. He won't get any answers stuck alone in a room, and he hopes someone out there can help him bridge the gaps in his memory, which aren't few.

His senses are overloaded the moment he steps out of the underground room. There are birds, lots of them, singing on nearby trees swaying in the wind, tall grass brushing along his hips, the sun on his face after so long. If the sensations are too much, the glimpse of the unending stretch of land before him makes Keith feel instantly overwhelmed. He knows deep in his heart, despite the lack of proof in his mind to back it up, that Terra is much bigger than what he sees. There's a castle in the distance and, beyond it, impressive mountains he will have to explore at some point.

Doubt starts creeping up his spine. Where should he go? There is nothing but ruins in this area and a disturbing lack of smoke that would indicate a fire and thus, other people. Keith pats the knife on his thigh; they gave him a weapon and a vague order, but no map and no location to go.

"Now's a good time to talk to me, you know." He says to the air and gets no answer, not that he had hoped to receive one. It seems like a one-way connection, so he will be left in the dark until the person decides to speak again.

Keith looks down at the ruins, spots an abandoned, decaying temple still standing, and thinks it's the perfect place to search for clues. He follows the trail down a slope and weaves through debris and broken buildings, minding his steps and keeping his eyes open for possible danger. Wildlife can attack him, or maybe something else, but what, he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything and he's getting more and more irritated as he searches around every crook and nook of his brain and finds absolutely nothing but metaphorical dust and cobwebs.

The staircase is uneven, some steps are broken, others are angled oddly due to roots and destruction, but Keith makes it to the top. The towering building has one side completely collapsed and destroyed beyond repair, and vines and cracks litter the surface of what is still standing. Grass has taken over the ground, hiding broken glass and leaving few glimpses of stone uncovered. There's an altar at the back with a faceless statue on it, flowers blooming by its feet. He rushes towards it, trips on his own feet, but finds nothing that can be of use there.

Keith fights down an exasperated sigh and rubs the inner corner of his eyes. Okay. He has a tablet, and tablets have features, right? It has to have a map or a GPS, a tracking system, anything that can lead him to someone else, someone that preferably has answers. He touches the screen, taps a few more icons until he finds a faded white grid on black background and two glowing dots. One is round and yellow, the other is a blue arrow. He takes a few experimental steps in a random direction; he's the blue one.

"Now we're talking," he murmurs to himself, exiting the old temple and heading in the general direction of the yellow spot.

It is a fairly lengthy walk, full of inclines and more debris, and the occasional gap he has to jump over. This place seems forgotten, ancient even, but the tablet in his hands is proof that Terra isn't this obsolete. He encounters some beings he steers clear from, not in the mood to fight for his life when he doesn't know what he should be doing in the first place, and by the distant whirring they make as they move, he can tell they aren't of flesh and blood.

After some long minutes of sneaking around, as this portion of Terra isn't as small as he had expected, he makes it to a pile of boulders that seem to be stacked too perfectly to be work of nature. "Oh great." He exhales noisily through his nose and steps over some smaller rocks on the ground to look into the little alcove beneath the boulders. "Another pedestal."

This one is much like the first one he saw in the room where he woke up. Keith sets the tablet in the middle and crosses his arms, letting the pedestal do its magic. It flashes silver again, like all the others. Olkari Tower activated, it says. Please watch for falling rocks.

A curse escapes him as soon as the ground rumbles beneath his feet. Keith crouches low by the pedestal and holds on to it as the tower - a tower? - breaks through the boulders and rises, stretching upwards far enough until he is sure it rivals the height of the abandoned temple. Keith allows himself a moment to wonder - why did I have to wake up? why is this happening? - and pushes himself to stand on his feet, wiping his hands on his pants and looking around the entire expanse of land he can see from the top. Seven other towers are visible from here, and who knows how many others are out there hidden behind mountains.

Keith turns back to the tablet once the robotic voice sounds again, picks it up to find that a detailed map of the area has been added to the previously blank grid. "Oh, thank god," his shoulder sag in relief. These towers can help him somehow. Finally something that is willing to lend a hand.

"Try to remember…" That voice again, louder and clearer in his head. "You have been asleep for the past one hundred years. Zarkon… You need to stop him before it is too late."

"Who are you?" He asks to nothing in particular. "Who is Zarkon?"

This time, he gets an answer. The ground shakes again, nearly knocks him out of balance, and Keith lifts his gaze, locks it on the white castle in the distance, on the black and purple fog - no, the black and purple magic that swirls around the structure. Zarkon. Another bright, brief flash of light from its middle, the highest tower. The mysterious person.

Once the earth has settled, he risks a glance over the edge of the tower and sees he's too far up from the ground. He can climb down the side of the tower easily, but would still be stuck in this plateau with no means to get to the field down below. The person stuck inside the castle can't help him now, so Keith will have to use his brain and find a way out of this by himself.

Keith spends the rest of the day walking around, but all he finds are small forest animals, some fruits that he wolfs down, famished, and more sentries scattered about. Most of them protect treasures, some of which he can lay his hands on by being light on his feet and silent. Not a memory to his name, but apparently he's skilled enough to be a thief. There is no map to be found, but if these robots are up here, then it means there is a way for him to leave. He searches for it for hours, treading through woods and plains and climbing rocks to find a way, any route out of here, but there is none.

The voice doesn't speak to him again.

With a sigh, he sits down on a flat portion of the rock formation he'd been climbing and rubs his temples. Okay… Okay, maybe he can find something on the tablet. This device is supposed to help him, right? Keith taps another icon, messes around the screen for a while and manages to zoom. Great, it works as a scope of sorts.

He spends some good five minutes snooping his surroundings through the device in his hands, but doesn't find anything eye-catching - until he aims at the top of the temple and spots a faint white glow. That is worth checking - anything at this point is worth taking a closer look, so Keith pockets the tablet and makes his journey towards it, picking his way down the rocks. Sunlight is slipping away as he reaches the temple again, weariness settling in his bones as he circles around the building once, trying to find a way up. He climbs the partially broken ladder to the roof as quickly as he can, afraid the mysterious glow will disappear come night. It's still there once he's standing on broken tiles and begins to take shape the closer he gets.

Keith stops a few feet away from the place where a bell should've been set. It looks like a person.

Dressed in regal robes, the man across him has an eye closed, staring him down with lips pressed in a tight line and hands clasped behind his back. Keith can feel him sizing his worth with one single look, an act that teases at something in the back of his mind.

"You are finally here," the man says, all gruff voice and no friendliness, white flames dancing by his feet.

Keith bites down a retort. He's been looking all over the place for another living soul and this person, whoever and whatever he is, has been here the whole time watching him make a fool of himself, instead of talking to him like the person in the castle did. Yeah, he can't complain if he didn't bother to help. "Who are you?"

"I am Chancellor Iverson, responsible for overseeing Terra during the Prince's absence from the castle. My life was taken away from me when Zarkon appeared one hundred years ago, and since then I have been waiting here for you to awaken and finish what was once started."

This Iverson is dead, but has information, and there is a prince somewhere out there. Keith waits for him to go on as patiently as he can, but after a long day, his patience is running thin. He's tired, hungry, annoyed, and he wants to know what it is he needs to finish and get the hell out of this place.

"Zarkon is an ancient evil, time and time again defeated by the Chosen Hero and the Prince of Destiny. Stories of him are passed down through generations, call them legends if you will, depicting past encounters that vary greatly from one another, set in different intervals of time with no apparent pattern to predict his return. The late King and Queen decided to prepare for this should it happen. By uniting with provincial leaders of Terra, they created five mechanical Lions that merge in a super weapon known as Voltron, meant to be piloted by chosen warriors from these provinces.

"However, apprehensive that it would not be enough, the Prince threw himself into an extensive training to unlock the sacred power from the legend, and his Champion was worthy enough to be chosen as pilot by the Black Lion herself. The Prince chose the four remaining pilots, and together under his lead, the Paladins of Voltron were to fight against Zarkon."

Iverson pauses and turns in the general direction of the castle. Keith can feel something stirring inside him. The tablet and the knife seem to weigh twice as much now, their meanings heavily linked to this story. "However, Zarkon seized control of the Lions, no one has heard of the Paladins since the attack, and a great portion of the population and everyone in the castle died. The Black Lion was sealed away at the time, waiting for the Champion to return and pilot her, so Zarkon could not take control when he struck. Having defended the Prince until his last breath, the Champion was separated from him and taken to the Shrine of Resurrection. As for the Prince, he hid the Black Bayard in a secret location and went to the castle to face Zarkon alone."

Something flashes behind his eyes. A silhouette against the light, muddied skin, warm tears falling on his face, a plea for him not to die. Keith knows what Iverson is going to say before he opens his mouth again.

"That Prince was Takashi Shirogane, a man who I raised and watched over since his parents' death. And the Champion, the Chosen Hero… Was you, Keith. You gave your life to protect him, and to this day he waits for your return, holding Zarkon inside the castle with his newly awakened sacred power until you go defeat that vile creature." Iverson fixes him with a stare. "He has been speaking with you from the moment you awoke."

Mind spinning out of control, Keith tries to puzzle together what he can in so little time. He's a knight, a leader, tasked to save a prince and his entire kingdom. "What should I do?" He asks at last, looking up at the translucent image of the chancellor. "How do I save him?"

Iverson's lips twist ever so slightly. "Going to the castle now would be suicidal. Your best course of action is to go East after the Blade of Marmora and speak with Kolivan, your former mentor before you took the role of the Prince's bodyguard. He will point you in the right direction, but I am afraid you will have to find the location of the Black Lion and her Bayard by yourself. The Voltron Slate should have marked where the Blade headquarter is."

He has a plan; it's a simple, underdeveloped one, but a plan nonetheless, and for someone lost like Keith, it's like a beacon of light in the darkness. But there's one thing left to solve before he can tackle that. "How do I leave this plateau? Do I climb down the side of the cliff?"

"That is what I would have told you a hundred years ago." Iverson's smile is rueful, gaze looking back into memories only he knows. "But we are short on time, so I will get you out of here before my time is up. You should find a mean of transportation once you contact them."

The white flames swirling around his feet grow brighter, and Keith shields his eyes as they stretch towards him. They make him feel lighter, weightless.

"You must save him…" Iverson's voice rings in his ears as he opens his eyes and finds himself at the base of the plateau, the vast expanse of the field just ahead. "Save Prince Shirogane and destroy Zarkon."

"I will," he promises, but Iverson is already gone.

Keith is alone now, the night animals the only things keeping him company from a distance. He sets off East, checking the tablet every now and then to make sure he is going in the right direction. There is a tower up ahead, a group of machines at its base. Now that he knows his purpose, they seem like a good target to access and evaluate his fighting skills. If Keith is meant to save Shirogane, and by extent the rest of Terra, then he needs to be in top shape.

He stops at a distance, unsheathes his knife and examines the blade. It's a little too short, but it will have to do. Keith slinks towards the enemy group, mindful of staying in the shadows, away from the glow of flames nearby. They carry guns, some of which he can see lying on the ground by the burning heap of junk. One final critical glance and he's off, running faster than he knew he could, faster than someone asleep for a hundred years should, cutting through the darkness of the night and throwing his knife at one of the androids. It glows and extends, shifting into a longer shape - a sword. Keith yanks it away without pause, pushing the thoughts and wonders aside for later, and takes care of the remaining three robots with a series of seamless strikes. He is good, maybe a little rusty around the edges, but good.

Good enough to save the Prince? He doesn't know.

There is no time to think about that, and thinking isn't going to solve it in the first place. He can practice by taking down as many robots and whatever else Zarkon throws at him, by running some of the distance to the Blade of Marmora, by climbing this tower to strengthen his arms. Keith has no recollection of Prince Shirogane aside from that fleeting, blurry memory, has no idea of what he means to the Prince, of what the Prince means to him, of how well they knew each other before the downfall. It seems impossible to work against a legendary evil together and stay as mere acquaintances, and while Keith doesn't want to assume they were close, the yearning feeling in his chest tells him he might just be right.

A new section of the Terra map is uploaded into his Voltron Slate once he interacts with the pedestal at the top of the tower, and it shows the area around where the Blade is located. The small town, Marmora, is not too far, and he estimates that he can make it there in a few hours.

Keith looks again at the castle, at the ominous darkness swirling around the white structure. Whoever Prince Takashi Shirogane really is, Keith is going to save him.


	2. allies, old and new

If there are any questions about the characters' roles, as in which loz character they're supposed to mirror, don't be afraid to ask!

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 **ii. allies, old and new**

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Keith follows the curve of the river, eastbound. He stops for a drink twice, fights a group of sentinels camped in his path and, with no better way to put it, steals their belongings, something he'll have to get used to sooner or later. Survival is important, and these robots have no use for the cash he finds, and they're better off without the weapons. Muscle memory kicks in quickly in combat, which is no surprise considering he participated in a war and also saves him time. It would be laughable if he had to relearn how to fight and wield a knife.

The sun rises, beats down on the back of his neck, and sets, the night bringing with it a chill. An entire day had been spent walking around the plateau, so he never let himself think it would be fast and easy to reach his destination, although he wished it could have been the case. He allows himself only a moment of rest, just enough time for him to eat a fish he struggled to catch and clean his hands in the flowing waters before resuming his journey to the Blade. Keith may have slept for one hundred years and may have woken up feeling rejuvenated, but his body is already asking for food and rest, reminding him that although he evaded death once, he's still only human.

There will be plenty of time to rest once he finishes this task, and besides, he has had enough rest to last him for a few days. Sick of sleeping, even if his body asks for it. The bright stars above call for his attention and Keith eventually gives in, stopping halfway across a bridge to look up. Surprisingly, he can name a few of them, their names finding their way to his tongue as his eyes trace the constellations, lips reciting words that aren't his own.

He hasn't forgotten everything save his name, after all. That's a small relief.

The Slate shows the headquarters just up ahead. Keith traces the edges of the tablet before putting it away. He has a sword that reacts to him, healing pods that kept him alive for a century, towers and tablets to show him the way, and yet the kingdom is nothing but ruins. So much technology could have surely brought it back to its former glory, but all he has seen so far are constructions missing pieces and not a single soul that wasn't an enemy. Then again, travelling at night is dangerous. He has to be the only one out and about this late.

Keith follows a trail between mountains for a mile that ends at the top of the small town of Marmora. He's arrived, the Slate says, the yellow dot indicating the location winking out of life once the blue arrow reaches it. Marmora is made of dark buildings all around, uniform in shape and style, soft violet lights emanating from the walls, spots of light marking a path into the village. A few inhabitants leave their houses as the sky begins to clear up, passing by him without as much as a second glance as they go on their business. They look different from one another, though long or large ears and purple skin are very common traits.

The headquarters of the group called Blade of Marmora is located here. Keith examines each of the buildings from a distance and decides to first look into the biggest one located on the other side of the town. It makes sense it would be the headquarters, and the two people standing guard outside suggest his suspicion might be right. The guards shift as he approaches, bend their knees and prepare to engage in a bodily fight if they deem needed. Taller and more muscular than Keith, he doesn't put it beyond them to manhandle and drag him out of the town if he doesn't agree to back off if they tell him so.

"Halt." The threat in the command is obvious. Keith stops where he stands and glances between them to gauge who spoke, but their dark outfits and odd masks hide everything from view. "Identify yourself."

Keith raises his hands up to show his empty palms, vaguely motions to his thigh and hip and, without ever looking away from both guards, slowly picks up the knife and displays it to them. "I was told it belongs to me. I know nothing else."

Both guards have their faces covered, but he can feel the weight of their stares on the blade in his hand. "Who told you that?"

"Prince Shirogane." One of them makes a muffled noise he can't identify. Skeptical, perhaps? "Look. I just woke up from a century-long sleep and I need answers."

They fall quiet, the guards evaluating him and Keith trying to not get too frustrated at them or his own condition. It's bad enough that his memories were wiped away, and now he has few things to prove what he was told when others seem to doubt him. If it weren't for the knife reacting to him, the fighting skills etched into his muscles, and Prince Shirogane himself speaking to him, Keith would have doubted being the Chosen Hero.

"Is that the Voltron Slate?" The one to the right asks, jutting his chin in the direction of Keith's hip.

His hand falls over it lightly. "Ah, yeah, I was given this too."

"Regris, stand watch. I will take the Champion to see Kolivan."

The familiar name gives him some hope. Keith is led to the front door by the nameless guard and follows him around the building, focused on getting the information he needs so he can leave and get to work. Stark white light illuminates the dark interior as opposed to the soft violets outside, and Keith can only hear his own steps, old boots squeaking on the floor, loud in his ears. Others that pass by them cast him curious glances, as curious as they can be with faces hidden and body language as closed off as the guards'.

A set of double doors open as the guard touches a pad on the wall, revealing the insides of an office and two people circling around a table, an holographic map of what Keith thinks is Terra projected on the tabletop. They pause in their walking, shock coloring their guarded expressions for a split second when their eyes land on him.

"You may go now, Antok."

The guard, Antok, takes his leave once the man in the room dismisses him. Kolivan, it seems, is a large man with a scar that runs vertically across his eye, and a silver braid looped around his neck and over his wide shoulders. The woman that had been analyzing the map with him looks more relaxed than she had been when they first walked in, her eyes a touch softer than before. She's smaller, but no less muscular, with marks on her cheeks and dual-toned hair. Keith feels ridiculously small near them. The people from Marmora are all taller than him by at least a foot.

"So, you're finally awake." Kolivan walks around the table to stop across from him with crossed arms. He watches Keith intently, looking for something.

"Keith." He looks at the woman, her smile gentle and eyes bright. He blinks and the smile falls off with a hitch of her breath. "You look different. Troubled, even. Is something wrong?"

Does he look that confused and lost, or is she really good at reading him? Both answers don't sit well with him. "I don't remember anything."

She deflates a touch. It's weird to see a stranger so affected by his memory loss, though it is understandable, he supposes. The fate of Terra rests on an amnesiac's shoulders.

"We knew that could happen, Krolia." Kolivan sets a firm hand on her shoulder, supportive. "It was either this or death, but it doesn't matter now. Terra has fallen under Zarkon and we need to stop him for once and for all."

Krolia meets Keith's eyes, the resolve in her own masking some of her sorrow. "He's right. It's a race against time and it's running out."

Iverson has made sure that Keith knows they're short on time simply by stating that Prince Shirogane is waiting for him. In the Castle. With Zarkon. "Right. Why am I here?"

"We, the Blade of Marmora, are a group of Galrans that have been assigned to serve the Royal Family since the Castle was invaded by the Galra Clan many years ago. We are different from the Royal Guard as we stay closer to the Family than they do." These sentences add more questions to his list, but Kolivan doesn't stop. "As a member, you were chosen as the Prince's personal bodyguard a hundred years ago and, thus, became his Champion."

"What should I do?" Keith interjects. He needs a mission, he needs an order. The more he stays memory-less and stuck in the same place, the more disgruntled he becomes. Someone out there - the Prince - needs him and he's stalling. He's the Champion - Kolivan, Antok and Iverson said so - it's his duty to save the Prince.

"Do you remember the role you have to play?" He simply nods in reply to Kolivan's words. No use telling them he it was the spirit of the late chancellor that reminded him of it; it will only drag this out for longer than it should. "After you fell, Prince Shirogane's final wish was to take you to the Shrine of Resurrection. And then, before going to the castle to face Zarkon alone, he entrusted us with a message to you."

It's Krolia that delivers said message. "You have to free the Lions, Keith."

The Lions. Iverson had mentioned them as he recalled the events that led to the fall of Terra, mechanical beasts that come together to form a weapon. Keith can't begin to imagine how that could happen, but since he awoke in that lonely Shrine in the plateau he hasn't know what to think of his predicament.

"The Lions are the result of the union between the Royal Family and leaders of provinces, piloted by representatives of these places, chosen by the Prince himself." As Kolivan speaks, Krolia moves back towards the table and projects images of five Lions of different sizes and features. There are no pictures of the pilots, the ones called Paladins. "There is the Green Lion, piloted by Pidge of the Olkari. The Yellow Lion, piloted by Hunk of the Balmera. The Red Lion, piloted by Allura of the Alteans. The Blue Lion, piloted by Lance of the Mer. And the Black Lion, piloted by you, that is hidden somewhere we don't know."

Keith turns his attention to the moving holograms, the shifting forms of the Lions combining into a machine unlike any other. "It would be better to awaken the other Lions so they can aid you in your fight. Perhaps they can still respond to you, even without their Paladins." Krolia watches him from behind the flickering projection, face tinged blue. "As he is now, Zarkon is too strong to take down on your own."

"The leaders of the provinces can give you more information regarding the Lions." Kolivan waves a hand towards the tablet. "But before you leave, you should get a change of clothes and let us recalibrate the Slate. It should tell you where to go."

Keith gives him the tablet, follows Krolia out of the room and down another set of hallways. She doesn't say anything as they walk side by side, and he keeps his mouth shut. He can't quite get over the way she looked at him in that meeting room, nor does he think he will forget it so soon, and Keith doesn't know what to make of it.

They reach a sleeping quarter, bare of personal belongings and nondescript. Krolia reaches inside the closet for a stretchy, skin tight outfit much like the one she wears and passes it to him with a small smile before leaving him to change. It fits him perfectly and hugs his limbs without getting in the way of his movements, and there's a built in sheath by the small of his back in which he slips the knife inside. That, too, fits like a glove. It must have belonged to him before he left for the Castle. Keith adjusts the pouch strap around his hips before stepping back outside.

Krolia passes him the newly calibrated Voltron Slate and guides him back to the front of the headquarters as he swipes across the map. They may have added four new destinations he has to check in the form of yellow dots, but the overall terrain of the kingdom remains a mystery. Seems like he will have to stop by every tower he sees.

"If you go on, you'll put your life on the line again, Keith. Are you sure about that?"

They linger just outside the doors, the faint breeze playing with the hood of his outfit. "I may have no memories of the past, but I have a purpose." He looks up at her. "If that's what Prince Shirogane wants me to do, then I will."

"Of course. You have never let him down." She smiles, blue eyes softening. "You never fail to make me proud, too."

He starts at that, hesitates for a heartbeat before nodding and heading down the stairs in a rush, suddenly afraid of what her words can mean. But also, how is it possible that he never failed to reach their expectations when he, well, failed once before? He was (is?) a member of the Blade of Marmora and it seems she's of a high rank, so Krolia is possibly his superior, and that's a good enough reason to tell him he makes her proud. That must be it.

Keith can feel her watching him until the lights of the town disappear behind him and the path takes him down a slope. For now, though, Keith has to figure out where to go. There's camp up ahead that he plans on taking for himself for the night. Sure he could have stayed in the headquarters, but he doesn't want the company of people that remember him, people who he's forgotten about.

It's a small group of only three sentries, thankfully, so it's easy to dispatch and drag the bodies aside so he doesn't have to look at the sparks flying from where the blade's connected. Some logs scattered about make an easy fire, over which he roasts apples from a nearby tree. Keith makes a mental note to find a way to earn money; he can hunt his own food if he comes across wildlife, he can sell it even or do small favors in exchange too, anything that can help him go through with this but won't hold him back in one place.

Keith cleans his hands on his pants and picks up the Slate to plan a route to follow. The pointers are set one in each corner of the map and whether he chooses to go north or south to begin, it's a very, very long distance to walk on foot. Iverson had mentioned the Blade could give him something to move around faster, and in his rush to escape Krolia's kind eyes, he had forgotten all about that.

There's a new icon on the screen when Keith closes the map. A few overlayed white squares on a yellow backdrop and he taps it, opening a new page with pictures of twelve different places. With no apparent people posing for these, he can't imagine why they were taken in the first place, but maybe Kolivan or Krolia do.

He lies down on the ground and places the Slate close by his head, letting his eyes trace over the stars until he falls asleep.

* * *

There's only so long one can sleep when the sun is out and they are out in the open. Keith wakes up from his short nap, groggy and much more tired than he had been upon waking up from the resurrecting sleep, with a crick in his neck to top it off. He stretches his stiff muscles and gathers the few stuff he set aside for what he had hoped would be a comfortable catnap, and backtracks his steps towards the Blade's headquarters.

More people are walking the streets of the village, including a few kids playing tag that nearly run into him. Antok and Regris let him in the building without much fuss this time, only nodding in acknowledgement and stepping aside to let him pass. Keith ventures through the hallways until he finds the same room from before, only this time Kolivan is in there alone. He's sitting at his desk, overlooking something in his own tablet, and glances up at him once he's stepped into the office.

"Do you need anything?"

Straight to the point; Keith can work with that. "Can I have something to make the trip faster?"

"Of course." Kolivan stands from his chair, clawed fingertips grazing the desk. "Your bike is still in the garage. We've improved it since."

Keith nods and stops him before he can lead them out of the room. "Also, I found pictures in the Slate."

Kolivan raises a brow. "Pictures?"

"Yeah. They weren't there until you recalibrated it." Keith passes him the tablet, the twelve thumbnails displayed on the screen. "Do you know what it means?"

He frowns down at the Slate, sweeping back and forth between the pictures. "Unfortunately, I do not. You were the one that knew Prince Shirogane the most and his possible reasons for taking these pictures. You don't remember, but the Slate actually belonged to him." Kolivan gives him back the tablet and turns towards the door. "I suggest visiting these locations. They might trigger your memory."

His bike, as it turns out, is a red hoverbike and the paint job looks new and shiny. Keith runs a hand over it and climbs it, presses the button that makes it purrs to life under him and grips the handles tightly. One experimental rev and it roars, the noise reverberating inside the walls of the garage.

"Careful with it, Keith." Kolivan advises as the doors slide upwards and reveal the street outside. "It'd be embarrassing for the Champion to escape death delivered by Zarkon's hands, but end up dying in a crash."

Keith snorts, but nods regardless and zips out of the garage after a quick goodbye. Once he's out in the open field, riding the hoverbike feels exhilarating. The wind in his hair and the continuous hum of the engine below him make adrenaline rush in his veins, make his brain beg him to go faster until everything around him is a blur. So he speeds up, mindful of Kolivan's warning but unable to deny himself this little indulgence. Besides, it will make him reach Olkarion faster.

Zarkon really did destroy most of Terra a century ago, confining the population to certain areas and leaving other places deserted and abandoned. The exception is the few travelers that stick to the roads and wave at him as he passes. Keith tries not to wonder how many people died because of his failure to take the evil down, how many entire families were lost, how many children lost their parents. What happened to his family, if he had any relatives alive when Zarkon struck? Are they dead? Or has he yet to meet them?

What about the Paladins? Are they truly dead? Do their families blame him for their downfall too? Keith has been awake for less than three days and already this mess feels like it's his fault. Everyone would still be alive and the Prince wouldn't have spent the last decades trapped in his own castle with that vile creature if Keith had been better, stronger, tried harder. Maybe he's not fit for this role. He can't imagine why they would choose him as the Black Paladin.

It's a long journey to Olkarion. One entire day of travelling and Keith has only covered one third of the way to the province, and it makes him realize how massive Terra actually is. He isn't going to be able to save Prince Shirogane by the end of the week unless he finds a way to teleport, and even then the idea of freeing the Lions that quickly seems ludicrous. Without his hoverbike, the entire journey would take much, much longer.

Along the way, he encounters a small group of travellers fighting the sentries, at a clear disadvantage until he intervenes and dispatches the robots easily. They give him roasted fish leftover from their lunch, and a couple of coins and bills he quickly adds to his stash, but he can't stop thinking; why do these sentries bother to attack civilians, and who is behind these things? Zarkon can't be controlling them since the Prince has been holding him back for the last century. Can he?

A sign on the road points in the direction of a village and he steers towards it to have somewhere safer to spend the night, knowing he isn't going to be able to rest properly sleeping out in the open field where the androids can appear at any moment. The population, as far as he's noticed, avoids the central region of the kingdom, sticking to the outskirts where it presumably is safer. Keith leaves the hoverbike parked outside the gates along with others, pats his pouches for his money and counts it. He has enough for a home cooked meal and a room in an inn, he estimates, but there are other things that he can get that can be more of use in the future, like a shiny crossbow and two dozen quarrels for hunting, and a cool bracelet that projects a shield upon command that he promptly purchases. Thankfully, the Blades (really, it must have been Krolia) packed him another suit and a couple of blankets, as well as some rations, dried and canned food to last for a few days, stored in the compartment of the bike, so he doesn't have to worry about that for now.

Unlike the Blade's town, the buildings in Puig differ from one another, all of which have pale walls, dirtied with time, but their differences lie in the shape of the constructions and the colors of the roof. The doors and window sills are colored to match the tones of the roof tiles, which makes the village more welcoming and warm than Marmora with its somber atmosphere. A part of the village has an open grassy space for travellers, cooking pots made out of sturdy stone set over campfires so wanderers can pepare their own meals.

Keith finds a spot by one of the campfires without a pot and drapes his blanket over the blades of grass, sits down on it cross-legged to have his simple dinner of canned chicken curry. If he wants to get stronger, he'll have to eat more and better than this, but he will adjust eventually. Right now, all he wants to do is eat and sleep.

Other travellers chat not too far, but aside from a simple nod of acknowledgement, Keith doesn't go out of his way to talk to them. That is until a newcomer settles down around the same campfire, tugging his long silver hair free from the low ponytail and running his fingers through the strands. He looks weary, as if he hasn't slept in the past hundred years while Keith had been slumbering like a baby, oblivious to everything. Purple skin painted orange under the lights of the flames, the man meets his eyes, does a double take and just - stares at him.

"What?" Keith tries not to scowl at the man, but his continuous blatant staring is irritating.

The man recomposes himself and moves close enough so they can talk more privately, not offering his hand in greeting but keeping both of them where Keith can see. "Forgive me. You just remind me of someone I knew long ago."

Keith doesn't even know what to say that, nor had he stopped to think if the common populace forgot about him. "I - yeah?"

"Yes, you're quite alike. I'm Lotor, by the way." Keith doesn't bother searching his brain for any scrap of memory featuring this man, and Lotor doesn't bother to ask his name. "What are you doing all the way out here in Puig?"

"Going to Olkarion on some business." He replies with a slight shrug of his shoulders. Best to keep quiet about his endeavours and his identity, Keith decides.

His words seem to be enough for Lotor, though. "I see." He looks pensive and stares at the flames until he has to squeeze his eyes shut from the ache. "Well, I have been travelling all around Terra for the past decades, so let me know if you need any help."

Keith traces his fingers over the Voltron Slate set beside his thigh and thinks of the gallery of pictures, of getting his memories back. He doesn't need to tell Lotor anything, all he needs to know is where he can find these places and he can get that information himself. With his mind made up, Keith opens the folder and shows Lotor the twelve thumbnails, lets him maximize the pictures and hum in contemplation. "I need to get to these places."

Lotor finishes looking at them all and returns to the third picture, a shot of tall white buildings among equally tall trees, lights gleaming green. "Just your luck. If you follow the road to the south of Puig, you'll end up near this spot."

"South road, got it." Keith accepts the Slate back. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Lotor waves him off and adds before moving away, "You'll need all the help you can get."

Keith watches him zip his backpack open and look through it, and they seem to reach a silent agreement to keep to themselves. He turns back to his meal and eases down onto the blanket once he's done, looking up at the stars and naming constellations in his head until his eyes grow heavy with sleep.

The first rays of sunshine prompt him to wake up seven hours after he laid his head on makeshift pillow made out of a folded blanket. Lotor is still asleep, as is the rest of the travellers, probably used already to the light of dawn and sleeping under the stars.

Out of consideration for them, Keith gathers his stuff as quietly as he can, checking if none of his stuff was taken during the night, and goes to a nearby stream to start his day. After washing his face, having one of the rations for breakfast and brushing his teeth, he folds his blankets and puts all his stuff in the compartment of the hoverbike, slips the strap of the crossbow across his torso and drives away quietly as to not awake an entire village with the roar of the engine.

The road south of Puig has trees lining it on both sides, a winding path that prevents him from riding at full speed, but at least it's a beautiful view and he almost doesn't mind that it'll take him longer to reach Olkarion. Almost. There's a tiny voice in his head that keeps reminding him of his duty, as if he could ever forget, even for a second. It reminds him that Prince Shirogane's power will not hold Zarkon back forever, that at some point it will weaken and fail, and that he can't afford to lose time taking detours to villages and driving down pretty places. He revs up the bike and shoots down the road.

It's quiet here, only the noises of the forest and the hum of his bike. Peaceful, even, if he were to stop for a break to center himself in the now and ease some of the constant worries from his mind. Keith doesn't linger in one place more than necessary, though. He stops to climb an apple tree, reclines against the branches and polishes a few fruits in his suit before taking bites, protected from the midday sun by the thick canopy. A robot is nearby, uncharacteristically alone, and he reaches for his crossbow to test it. Takes aim, and with a press of his finger, the quarrel zips through the air and goes through the metallic head. The thing sizzles, makes a noise as the system shuts down and falls in a heap of stiff limbs. Nothing of value can be found with it and Keith takes the quarrel back, makes a mental note to get himself a bottle of water.

Night comes around and he camps out in the wild, a little ways away from the road with no fire to keep him warm. His sleep is restless, the chill of the night making him curl into himself, jumping awake at every noise he hears. It'll take time to adjust, but he hopes it doesn't take too long and stares up at the swaying leaves as sunshine touches the land, the bad night of sleep settling deep in his bones, unable to nap for a little longer.

The next tower he activates is located west of where he camped and he can see Olkarion both on the map and up there. The sight gives him a little more encouragement and an extra push to climb his way down and drive to the location of that picture and then beyond, into the city to learn more about the Paladin of the Green Lion.

Keith stops the hoverbike, hops off and takes the tablet in hand to compare the view to the photograph taken so long ago. Some things have changed about Olkarion, but the tall white buildings and green lights remain the same. Rather than look out of place, it is almost like the buildings complement the trees that surround them.

He holds the Slate up to eye level, squints at the screen, focuses his gaze on the real thing, reaching for the depths of his mind. If he stares hard enough, it might work.

And it does.

* * *

With their business in Olkarion now done, they prepare to head North towards Altea, the mid morning sun warm on their backs and their hoverbikes parked somewhere to the side. Keith walks a few steps behind the Prince, tracing the lines of his shoulder with his eyes as he lists off a few tasks to be done, flicking through the data in the Slate, a common procedure done before they leave a city for good.

"Later, we should head to Mer. It seems Lance activated a sonar in his Lion after spending a lot of time with her underwater. Can you believe it, Keith? The Lions can do so much more than we know. Allura mentioned something similar the last time we spoke."

The Prince turns around, all warm smiles and crinkled eyes as he looks down at Keith. The white of his armor stands out in the nature, accentuating the blue glow of details on the plates. He jokes they are matching sometimes, as the color schemes of the Black and White Paladins are the same when you add the undersuit to the equation. In a more serious tone, he will say they can't work without one another, that they function better together than separated, and Keith wholeheartedly agrees.

Keith lets a smile tug at his lips and stops a respectful distance away, drilled into him by Iverson when he first got to the castle. "It does seem unreal, Shiro. Do you ever wonder what the other Lions can unveil?"

"Yes, but I'm more interested in what the Lions can do as one." Shiro pins him in place with a stare, the frown almost foreign on his usual friendly face. "We need to call for another meeting, Keith. We need to make sure you can form Voltron without issues when the time comes."

"Shiro," he walks closer. It shouldn't be proper for the Champion to stand so close to the Prince of Terra, but Shiro never seemed to mind the proximity, and Keith was never one to bend to decorum once he was given permission to ignore it, much to the Chancellor's chagrin. He places a hand on Shiro's shoulder, the hardness of the armor preventing him from squeezing the flesh beneath. "I told you to not worry about Voltron. We have it under control."

Shiro's shoulders sag a little, and Keith can hear the whirring of his arm as it moves to place a hand above his own. The frown shifts into a rueful smile, the same one that appears when Shiro makes a self-deprecating comment, only when they're alone. That's how comfortable he is in Keith's presence. "I know. I just… I can't awaken this power no matter how hard I try. Focusing on Voltron is the only way I can find to feel like I'm being useful."

Both of Keith's hands are on him now, both to support the Prince and keep himself from coming closer still. "You told me once, 'patience yields focus', remember? It worked with me, so it will work with you."

Shiro's smile is more genuine this time, his prosthetic hand squeezing Keith's firmly. "It's hard to remember that when everyone's expecting so much of me."

"You have five other people to share this burden with, Shiro." Keith's gaze roams his face, the pink scar on his nose making it no less gorgeous than it was before when he'd only caught glimpses of the Prince from a distance. "Don't let it drag you down."

Shiro ducks his head, fringe falling and partially hiding his blush from view. "Thank you, Keith, for being by my side."

Of course, Keith wants to say, he will never leave his side, he will walk to the edge of the world to make Shiro happy, Keith will do anything he asks him to. That's how much Keith is loyal to him, devoted to this incredible man that puts his people's needs before his own. Shiro sometimes forgets to be a little selfish, so it is a good thing he is Keith's top priority.

* * *

Keith reels back as the memory ends, the Slate falling from his hands and hitting the grass below with a dull thud. He would let out a huff if he had air in his lungs, so he sucks some through his teeth and bends down to retrieve the tablet. Now he has a face - a beautiful one at that - to a name, now he knows who the person he pledged loyalty for looks like.

So that was Prince Shirogane, the man inside the castle waiting for him.

Patience yields focus. Pince Shirogane had told him that once, and Keith threw it back at him when he needed to hear it. Curious how it is something Keith needed to hear right now, too.

As much as the sense of urgency grows within him, Keith can't really go to the castle with guns blazing and no memories. It's important that he goes after each of the Lions and convinces them to help him, that he hunts down these locations and recalls what happened. Not only that, he also needs to find out where the Black Lion and the Bayard are located, which no one seems to know where they were hidden. A few people from the castle would probably know, but they are all gone.

He can't go around in a rush to save Terra and do a half-assed job. So he silences that nagging voice as much as he can, tries to convince himself that this is okay, that by some work of destiny the Prince will keep Zarkon in place until Keith is ready to enter the castle.

Looking down at the Slate, Keith observes the picture taken so long ago. Prince Shirogane and him seemed close, at least close enough that it allowed Keith to touch him and call him by a nickname. He hadn't expected to see himself interacting so casually with a Prince, but it's a pleasant surprise that shows him that the Pri- that Shiro bothered to get to know him, and that they were presumably more than just Prince and Champion.

The memory only raises more questions, though - the scar, his arm, did he ever unlock the sacred power - but all in due time, Keith reminds himself. He will get back all his memories of the Paladins, all the moments he spent with Prince Shirogane. He will remember all the people he's forgotten and the bonds they share.

Hopping on the hoverbike, Keith turns it on with a press of his fingers and continues down the path towards Olkarion, picking up speed now that the road isn't as sinuous as before. He will be patient, but Terra can't wait, Shiro can't wait.

It hurts to know that such a beautiful man put so much faith in Keith, and yet he let him down.


	3. pidge of the olkari

**iii. pidge of the olkari**

* * *

Olkarion doesn't look this big from a distance, but once Keith sets foot into the city, he can see how deceiving it actually is. It's not composed of just the buildings among the trees he had spotted previously, as more of them are built into the vegetation as well, connected by elevated pathways, busting with life. The streets are crowded, a flurry of pale yellow or grey insect-like beings that aren't as tall as the Galrans he's met. None of them seem to mind his presence and Keith tries to find his way until he's on the tallest pathway thinking all this height will help him somehow.

Truth is he doesn't know what or who to look for as these people are strangers to him just as he is to them. Asking for directions is the only option he has and he stops a couple passing by before he can think things through. They blink at him, stunned at the way he so rudely interrupted their stroll. One of them raises a brow and it's only then that he realizes he needs to ask them something.

"Do you… Have a leader or something?"

At first sight, Keith can't tell their genders, but then again, it is irrelevant right now. They exchange glances, questioning his sanity, maybe wondering if he'd been living under a rock for the past years, which isn't so far from the truth. "Well… We do." One of them says, a grey hue to their body and red tinged eyes.

"Where can I find them?"

They point in the general direction of the city center. "Ryner can be found at the Main Command Tower."

With a nod and a quick thanks, Keith leaves them to their doings and weaves through pathways, trying to get closer to the tower, but failing miserably as he does so. Not only do the pathways seem to start and finish at random points, he also doesn't know which one is the main tower. He would bet it is supposed to be the tallest one, but from here he can't tell which it could be. If he'd known that before, he could have checked it from the spot where he regained his one and only memory of the Prince.

Keith takes shortcuts through buildings, is nearly chased out of one by an elderly man and his cane when he accidentally crashes some kind of party, asks more people than he can count for directions and finally ends up on the ground, standing just outside the double doors of the Main Command Tower. The top of the building isn't visible due to all the foliage from nearby trees, and the interior is minimalist and sleek, the wood design furniture bringing balance to the polished floors and otherwise high-tech appearance of the place. An Olkari sits alone by the desk at the front, typing away at a computer thinner than his pinky finger.

La-Sai, the name tag reads, looks up at him and gives him a practiced smile. "Can I help you?"

"I need to speak with Ryner," Keith hopes he doesn't sound like he's demanding it, but with few information in his hands, he doesn't really know how to voice his needs.

"Do you have an appointment with her?" His silence speaks volumes. La-Sai's smiles turns a little _too_ apologetic before they say, "I'm sorry. Ryner is usually busy. You'd need to have an appointment to talk to her."

Keith tries to reign his exasperation, repeats the newly acquired mantra taught to him by Shiro like a prayer in his head. "It's important - I - please. I need to talk to her."

"Sir, I'm sorry." They speak firmly this time, smile slipping away as their lips twist in a frown. "If you insist anymore, I will have to call security."

His hands fist by his sides, the heel of a hand bumping into the pouch to his right. Of course, that's his way in, how could he have forgotten? Keith snatches the tablet from within the worn-out leather and sets it on the counter, pushing it in the Olkari's direction with a meaningful look. "Please."

La-Sai regards him, dubious, but reaches for the tablet and takes it with care, examining the front first before turning it over. Their shoulders jump, but thry don't gasp. Looking at Keith in the eye as they return the device and reaches for the earpiece on their head, La-Sai speaks slowly once the call connects. "Miss Ryner, there's someone here with an Olkari Slate. The Voltron Model."

And just like that, La-Sai ends the call and guides Keith to the elevator. The ride up to the top floor is long as he goes by himself, the elevator is the panoramic kind that lets him spy the outside world as a jazzy tune plays from the speakers. It doesn't actually last as much as it seems, and he's got his nerves under control by the time the door opens and he walks into a wide office with too many potted plants lining the walls.

Ryner stands from her seat behind her desk and guides him to a pair of chairs with plush seats by the window, waiting for him to sit before she does the same. She looks friendly enough, introducing herself first before she asks for his name, and inquires if he needs or wants anything before they start. He declines her offers for food and water as politely as possible. "La-Sai told me about the Slate."

He gives it to her without second thought, curls his hands around his knees. "I didn't know there were different models of Voltron Slates."

"Actually, there isn't." Her smile makes her eyes crinkle in the corners. "Our Olkari Slates have different models as they are upgraded, but there is only one Voltron Slate, made specifically for Prince Shirogane a hundred years ago. If you have this, then it means you are his Champion. You survived after all, as the rumors say."

Keith only nods, unfit to answer for his own past and near death, but she's the leader of the Olkari, so it should be okay to tell her what happened. "I woke up without memories."

Ryner hums and returns the tablet to him. "That's unfortunate. It was the first time the Alteans made a healing pod that could save someone from the brink of death, the Slumber of Restoration, they called it. You were the first subject it seems." A side effect for saving his life. Keith is sure losing his memories is better than dying and leaving everyone in the hands of Zarkon. "I can't bring them back, but I can try to help you if you need anything."

"Are you the one that helped create the Lions?"

"No, that was Lubos, but he's been long expelled from Olkarion after his betrayal decades ago." She informs him gravely, and he thinks it's best not to ask about it. "You're seeking knowledge about the Lions, right?" Ryner touches the band around her wrist, projects a keyboard and taps at it, swiveling her chair towards the tall windows. Keith turns his attention to the outside, at the flickering trees in the distance. Yet another hologram. "The Lion is hidden there, protected by a barrier made by herself, it seems, since that fateful day."

"I need to awaken it." He tells her, grip growing tight around his knees. "I need her to defeat Zarkon."

Ryner smiles at his determination. "You should look for the Holts. They were close to the Green Paladin, they should be able to help you more than I can."

With a new address to visit and a few directions, Keith leaves the office and the Main Command Tower, heads southeast towards a particular neighborhood. There are less people in this part of the city, a residential area by the looks of it, and the dimming sunlight sure helps too. Again, he gets lost more than once; even with the address added to the map of his Slate, navigating these pathways and streets is still complicated.

Keith makes it to one of the buildings built into trees, examines the little touchscreen beside the door, a numeric keyboard glowing green like the rest of the lights he's seen. He taps the number of the floor and apartment respectively, and waits for someone to answer as the beep sounds faintly from it. Some people walk past him at some point, but no one enters the building so he can sneak inside, and the intercom beeps away, unattended.

Finally, someone picks it up, audio crackling once before a masculine voice says. "Who's it?"

He looks down at his hands. What is he supposed to say? Keith, the Champion? Well, it might just work.

"Who do - Oh. I sure hope this isn't a joke." The man huffs close to the speaker and it makes an awful noise that has Keith shuddering. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yeah, I'm Keith, Shi - Prince Shirogane's Champion and the Black Paladin." Keith feels like an idiot speaking to a device with no video feed, but at least no one's around to see it. "I have some questions."

The line goes dead and the door buzzes open to a homely entrance hall, yellow lights from the ceiling making it cozy, bamboo furniture giving it a touch of casualness. Four floors up, three doors to the left and he's standing before a white door, the numbers 421 engraved in a plate above the doorbell. He rings it once and doesn't have to wait more than a few seconds before the door slides open with a woosh, a disheveled auburn-colored Olkari standing on the other side, ready to pounce him as if Keith were about to flee.

He enters when prompted and is taken to a living room with more stacks of books than he thought could fit a place like this. "Hey," the Olkari catches his attention before Keith can look at the rest of the room. "It's been so long. I hardly remember how you looked like back then, I was so young."

"Tell me about it," he says with a wry twist of his lips. "There were some… Complications and I lost all my memories in the Slumber of Restoration."

"Shit, really? But did you… Did you forget everything? Really forgot everything?"

Keith levels them with a look. "Everything." From his family to his teammates, from his moments at the Blade to the time spent with Shiro, all of it is gone.

The Olkari curses and rubs at the inner corner of their warm brown eyes. Now that Keith is looking at them more intently, they've got an uncanny resemblance with someone. "So you forgot everything about my sister?"

Ah, this must be Matt, then, Pidge's brother. The guilt coursing through Keith's veins is almost palpable; the Holts are her family, and here he is with no recollection of her. "If you are talking about Pidge, the Green Paladin, then yes, I did. But I forgot _everything_ and I mean it."

"Even the Prince?" Keith can't quite hold back the glare he directs at the man, and he brings his hands up in a placating gesture. "Okay, I'm sorry, it's just hard to grasp it, is all. I'm Matt, by the way." Their hands meet, hold one another for a second and call it a hand shake. "My parents would love to see you again, but they aren't in Olkarion right now."

"That's fine. I'm sure you know everything about the Lion, seeing as you are her brother."

Matt smiles, eyes a little watery around the edges. "Yeah, I - I was." He coughs into a fist and takes a step back. "I'll get us some tea and then we'll talk, okay? Make yourself at home."

Keith is left alone in the living room and takes the time to inspect the place. Books are stacked in every possible flat surface: the ground, a stool by the corner, a small coffee table set between the TV and the couch. Two armchairs are to the side, facing the closed window with open, rose colored curtains, and the three-seat couch is placed far from the wall. A long, narrow table is set against it, a candle burning slowly beside an arrangement of fresh pink and white gladiolus in a glass vase.

He walks further into the room to study the set up further and slows to a halt once he catches sight of the massive photograph hanging on the wall. A young Olkari much like Matt, like his carbon copy, smiling at the camera, dressed in the same armor he'd seen in that memory, only the details are green. Keith sucks in a breath through his teeth.

This is Pidge, the pilot of the Green Lion.

* * *

Keith emerges from the woods, footfalls soft on the grass below, sun shining down on him now that he's reached the clearing. The Green Lion is ahead, sitting on her hind legs, regal, face pointed forward. Beneath her, Pidge has made herself comfortable on one of the Lion's front paws, sitting cross-legged and typing furiously at her tablet.

He doesn't know her for long, but this is will be the first image that will pop into his head when he thinks of her, head bowed, a concentrated frown on her face, fingers quick as lightning as they work. The Green Lion shields her from the sun and it's a shame, really, that Pidge is so used to the environment of Olkarion that she doesn't seem to appreciate it as much as he does. If she'd been living in Castle Town as he has been for the past three years, she would enjoy the peace of mind from being surrounded by nature, or so he thinks.

Pidge looks up as he stops a few feet away from her and graces him with a brilliant smile. "Hey! You're back in town."

"Of course I am." He motions vaguely towards her tablet. "I thought Shiro had told you that."

"Hmm… Must have slipped my mind." She shrugs, nonchalant, and hops off the paw, beckons him with a hand as the Lion whirls behind her. "Come, I want to show you something."

Keith steps into the mouth of the Lion behind her, follows her down the familiar path to the cockpit. "I shouldn't be surprised that you're tinkering around the Lion."

"You can't let me have one of these and expect me not to mess around with it." He supposes that's true, but chooses not to say anything as she takes her seat and he leans on its back to watch her poke around the console. "So I managed to implement an invisibility cloak on the Lion."

His eyebrows inch up his forehead. "Wow, really? Where'd you get the idea from?"

"Something my dad is working on in the laboratory." Of course, he should have known she would be learning from her father's works. "I can probably add this feature to the other Lions, and Voltron by extent as well, but we'd need someone to operate the cloak while we pilot."

She presses a button and activates the cloak. Nothing changes inside the Lion, so he's aware she'll drag him out to see the result of her tinkering very soon. "Shiro could do that." He says, holding on to the seat as she commands the Lion to stand up.

"You're really gonna put him in the Black Lion as we fight Zarkon?"

Keith shrugs a shoulder, although she can't see it. "Where else would you want me to hide him? He would be safer with me."

He expects a jab, some kind of comment directed at their relationship. Though he's known Allura for longer compared to the others, Pidge was the first Paladin he was formally introduced to, and while their bond doesn't compare to what he has with Shiro, and what she has with Hunk to some extent, they are close enough that he doesn't feel bothered or annoyed whenever she decides to make a joke. Jokes that usually involve his and Shiro's completely platonic bond, she says, wow you are such good friends.

But nothing comes and Keith looks down at the top of her head. Her hands are gripped tight around the controls and he can see in his mind's eye the frown on her face, not the concentrated kind he'd glimpsed earlier.

"Do you really think Zarkon is coming?"

Her question is so quiet he thinks he imagined her speaking, but then Pidge looks at him from over her shoulder and he realizes it wasn't his imagination. Keith doesn't have an answer for that; he's been asked the same thing by Shiro, rhetorically, over and over, and has asked himself the same a few times before bed. It was a question that only led to more inquiries than answers.

"I don't know," he answers at last and she goes back to looking forward. "But if not, then at least we're leaving something for the future generations to use against him."

Pidge huffs softly, "Talking like a true leader, I see. Has it grown on you yet?"

" While I am learning from the best," she snorts and he knocks his knuckles on the top of her head gently, "You shouldn't say that. Shiro's the true leader, I just pilot the Lion."

* * *

"Keith?"

He blinks, stepping back and turning to look at a worried Matt by his side, a tray with two cups and a teapot in his hands. Pidge had been short for an Olkari and the only Paladin that was shorter, too. And she looks so much like Matt, Keith can't help but wonder how she would be now, how tall and smart, how much they would look alike that they could pass off as twins.

"Sorry, I…" He motions at the photograph slowly. "I… Remembered something."

Matt smiles, cocks his head to the other side of the living room so they can sit. "That's good. I'm glad she's not… Just a faceless teammate to you anymore." He doesn't mean it bad naturedly, but Keith can't hold back the fresh surge of guilt that washes over him. It's not his fault he's forgotten everything, but sometimes it feels like it is, like he took it all for granted and let the Slumber of Restoration wipe everything away.

The tea is sweet and warm, the floral undertones dancing on his tongue, and he settles back on the couch as Matt takes one of the armchairs, sipping his own drink slowly, gaze on the ground. "What would you like to know?" He asks quietly, lifting his eyes to look at Keith.

"What happened to the Lion after...?"

Matt sighs and closes his eyes, saucer and cup lowered to balance on a thigh. "She'd been leaving Olkarion to the Castle, had already taken flight. We didn't speak much on the way to the clearing, but she sounded distressed, maybe anxious that Zarkon had really come. The Lion didn't get very far until she halted and we could see everything from here as she struggled. It was like... There was something on her back that she wanted to throw off, twisting around midair in a display that I can only describe as agonizing. Now I don't know or think the Lions can feel anything, but it was like she was in pain."

He traces the rim of the cup with a finger, eyes downcast, and Keith looks away to give Matt as much privacy as he can. Matt's voice wavers. "She was firing lasers everywhere, some hit really close to Olkarion, but thankfully none hit the city. And then she plummeted back in the clearing. By the time we got there, it was sealed within a barrier, somehow the Bayard was laying by its feet, and Pidge never responded to our calls."

Keith rubs the underside of his nose as a sniff comes from the other man, keeps his eyes trained on the curtains. "Her Bayard you say?"

"Yeah, we keep it in her room as a memento."

"Would you mind if I took it with me to see the Lion?" Keith swirls the tea around the cup to focus on anything but Matt. "I want to see if she responds to it."

Matt raises his head and smiles a little. "Sure. If it'll help, it's what she would have wanted." He stands from the armchair, stretches as if he's been there for hours and not only five minutes. "Why don't you stay the night? I'm sure it was a long journey."

Keith nods and rises as well. "Thanks. It was."

"Great. I'll order us something and shoot a message to my parents that you're here." Matt gathers the cups onto the tray and takes it in hand again. "You can shower if you want. I can lend you a change of clothes."

Warm water does wonders to the knots on his shoulders and the weariness of a long day on the road, and Keith stands there under the spray for longer than he should, watching the water swirl down the drain, fighting his heavy eyelids. A change of clothes waits for him on the other side of the door. They fit him well enough that he doesn't need to fold any hems, and then finds Matt nursing the rest of the tea in the kitchen. They sit across from one another, Keith listens as he talks about Pidge, reminiscing the old days when she was still among them.

Dinner is a lot of vegetables, more kinds than Keith cares to count, briefly interrupted by a video call as Sam and Colleen talk to Matt. He tries to drag Keith into it, but the latter refuses, standing to manually do the dishes and busy himself so that Matt won't ask him again. Thankfully, he doesn't, and Keith is glad he won't have to look at them on a screen and say he's slowly remembering who their beloved daughter used to be.

Matt lets him sleep in Pidge's bedroom, left untouched even after one hundred years, but he thinks it's okay to let Keith spend the night there and his parents agreed, apparently. They linger together by the door, staring at the darkened room for a whole minute until Matt excuses himself with a quiet goodnight and disappears into the next door. Keith closes the door behind him and flicks the switch up, making the overhead and the string lights attached to the walls glow. A lot of posters are taped to the walls, instruction manuals and mechanic books littering the small bookshelf, some random devices and tech parts scattered around the floor. One battered beanbag is pushed against the corner, an open book upon it, pages bent at odd angles. Her bed is hastily made, starry blanket laid over the mattress in a rush, perhaps the last thing she did in this house before leaving.

The Green Bayard is on her desk, the only thing on it aside from a bedside lamp. Keith takes it, the weight of it foreign on his hand, turns it around, looking for something but unsure of what. He walks over to the bed, sits on the edge, across a full-body mirror hung on the wall, stares at his reflection with a hollow gaze.

Golden light streams from the windows above her desk, highlighting specks of dust dancing in the air. Pidge is standing before the mirror, turning this way and that to look at her new armor from every possible angle, the activated Bayard in her hand, glowing green. She turns around, flashes him a brilliant grin and laughs, running around her bed to his side so they can go together to a meeting with Lubos and Shiro.

When Keith opens his eyes again, it's already morning and he's fallen asleep with legs over the edge of the bed, arms sprawled to the sides, Bayard just within reach of his fingers. Matt is in the kitchen when he enters, coffee brewing and fresh fruits and toast set on the table, and offers to accompany him to the Lion, but Keith finds it better and safer if he stays away from her as they don't know what she can do once Keith is within range. He leaves the house shortly after breakfast, promising to return and tell him everything that happened once he's tried to speak with the Lion.

Their apartment is not too far from the clearing and it's easier to find the right path this time around, walking along the ground against the flow as civilians move to the city center. A statue circled by flowerbeds is there at the edge of the woods, depicting Pidge in an heroic pose, pointing her Bayard forward, fierce expression in place. The sign by her feet reads a handful of chosen words reminiscent of ones found in graves.

Keith bows his head respectfully and heads into the forest.

* * *

During the process of choosing the Paladins, Shiro had often tried to ask Keith for his opinion, bringing up reasons why certain people should be picked until Keith told him, with no amount of hesitation, that it wasn't his place to help him and he would trust Shiro's judgement blindly, regardless. He'd just been the Prince's Champion back then, with no title of Black Paladin over his head and no greater role entrusted to his hands, until it all changed and he found himself caught in the middle of it all.

Katie of the Olkari isn't anything like what he'd expected, but then again, Keith hadn't expected much to begin with. He hadn't expected to be chosen as the Prince's bodyguard years ago, hadn't expected to earn the title of Champion, and he hadn't expected to be chosen as the Black Paladin by a manmade Lion that, somehow, has a level of sapience. And Katie… Well, all he knew about the Olkari is that they're tall and she definitely isn't, but she doesn't seem like a bad person, only guarded, staying by the far wall and watching him with hawk-like eyes.

Why Shiro had thought it would be wise to have them both meet one another by themselves, Keith couldn't tell, but if the success of their greater mission depended on his socialization skills, then it's compromised before it's even begun. He takes a step forward - someone has to do that, and he has to be that someone as he's the Black Paladin, second in command, and all that. Katie shifts, grips her elbows tight in her hands, lifts her head in the slightest.

"Hey," he offers a hand, lets it hover in the space between them until she takes it, however long it might be. "I'm Keith. Nice to meet you."

She looks down at the limb, takes it softly in hand, and her walls melt around them. He glances at their joined hands, briefly stunned, still unused to the way non-Galrans greet one another. "I'm Katie, but you can call me Pidge if you'd like."

Keith tests the nickname on his tongue, drops her hand to let both of his hang by his sides. "We're going to be teammates from now on."

"Yeah!" She pushes away from the wall, eyes shining bright, seemingly an entirely different person now. "Aren't you excited? I got to see the Lions while my dad was working on them. Piloting them will be so cool!"

He smiles slightly, but doesn't agree nor disagree. Truth is, he isn't excited and he didn't want a honorable seat on the Black Lion, a seat Shiro should occupy in his opinion, but Shiro needs to use the sacred power and he can't do both things at once. At least, Pidge seems to like the role entrusted to her and he hopes the others are as accepting of it as she is.

* * *

 _Here, you could say Pidge is Mipha's equivalent. I thought it would be fitting, mostly because they both have brothers. For a moment, I entertained having her as the older sister, but discarded the idea._

 _I hope you're enjoying so far!_


	4. inside the green lion

**iv. inside the green lion**

* * *

Looking up at the Lion now, Keith can name some of her qualities. Guardian Spirit of the Forest is her formal name, given by Shiro as homage to the province of Olkarion, an adventurous kind that represents the people that helped build her, with an exclusive power tied to the forest, a cannon that binds enemies with vines. Possibly the most upgraded due to Pidge's incessant tinkering, adding and modifying power-ups as she pleased, always having something new to show them when they met together for practice.

For sentient beings, they look pretty vacant, with their eyes glowing yellow or not. Powered down as she is now, she sure seems a lot colder, unfeeling, like any other machine that certainly can't communicate with its pilot. He wonders how many times the Holts came here and begged the Lion for a reaction, for an answer, a sign that Pidge was in there alive, but never got anything in return because Green shut down and remains unresponsive even a hundred years after her fall. He doesn't think she is dead, no.

Pidge can't be dead.

His brain supplies him with a few things it unveils as his regained memories slowly slot back in place where they belong. Each Paladin had an unique bond with their Lions, they responded to their designed pilot and them alone, and Keith spends a long time staring at her, trying to decide on how to approach a Lion that had never been his.

"Pidge?"

It's stupid that he calls out to her, knowing her own family never got an answer, but it gives him an excuse to stall and squash down the little bit of hope that made itself known when a thought crossed his mind that, maybe, she would respond to him. Keith's one-word question is replied with silence save for the sounds of the forest.

He grips her Bayard tighter in his hand, walks closer to the barrier set around the Lion, something he's sure he's never seen before even if he lacks proof. It doesn't seem like the kind that would hurt him in any way if he were to touch, but he supposes he'll have to test if it will shock him or something to find out if he can cross this shield. Keith taps it with his fingertips, comes out unscathed, and the barrier is pretty solid beneath his hand.

"I'm the Black Paladin." He feels silly talking to it, wouldn't feel as such were the Lion looking down at him with bright yellow eyes. "I'm not your pilot, but I knew her and I'm here for her. Pidge." His fingers curl tightly around the Bayard to steel himself. "Pidge, if - no, I know you're in there. You liked Green too much to be separated from her even after... Even after everything. We need to stop Zarkon and I need your help for that."

Fingers twitch by his side and slowly he lifts a hand up, hesitating for a beat before tapping the Green Bayard on the barrier.

Despite the trickle of doubt nestled in his chest, it works. It doesn't crumble, doesn't explode in a flash of light and sparkles, but the shield caves in, pulls apart until there's a gap big enough for him to walk. Once he's on the other side it mends back together, energy sparks in the air and the Lion shifts, stands to its full height and then bows down, mouth open and eyes aglow, allowing him entrance. Maybe the Lion decided he's worthy of going inside, maybe she heard the conviction in his voice, maybe it was truly Pidge that was behind Green's brief awakening, light flickering out as the whirring of her engines fades to nothingness.

He sets foot on the walkway and heads inside, darkness settling around him the deeper he wanders. Keith may not remember what the inside of the Lion looks like, but he's fairly certain it doesn't take this long to reach the cockpit, or anywhere else really. He hasn't been walking for more than two minutes, but the fact that it's taking him more than thirty seconds to reach the control panel is unsettling, to say the least.

At long last, green light shines at the end of the path, like it once had when it broke through the black emptiness of his sleep, and he wonders momentarily if Shiro will contact him again. He doesn't, and Keith is standing among trees as if he'd simply cut a path through the Lion to reach the other end of the clearing. When he looks behind himself, though, there is no Lion, no lightless tunnel he just transversed, only more trees, tall and imposing, stretching on forever with no white building in sight. Everything here feels real, from the fresh air to the pine scent to the glow that filters through the canopy and touches his face, but then he glances down at his hands, translucent, much like the entirety of Iverson's body had been atop that abandoned temple. A spirit.

"Keith?"

"Pidge!" He whirls around, but there's no one standing in the forest with him. Her voice tugs at his chest and his memories don't do it justice, even now that it's distorted like an echo, coming from too many directions to pinpoint the exact source.

"Keith! How- How are you here? What happened?"

He looks up at the sky, black with dancing green auroras, littered with bright stars, and yet everything around him is visible like bathed under sunlight. "It's a long story, Pidge. Where are we?" Where are you, he adds mentally, but the idea of seeing her like he once saw Iverson doesn't sit well with him.

"This is the Green Lion's conscience, I believe. I've been here since... Since that day."

Keith swallows, looks around him once more. A hundred years trapped in this place. What does it make of her? Is she only a voice now, corporeal form truly dead and lost? "I need to get to the cockpit."

Wind rustles around him, sharp like an intake of breath. "To do that, you have to go through it."

His feet take him further into the woods, eyes looking for a way out. "And what is it specifically?"

"A creature, a powerful one unlike any other I've seen. I don't know where it came from and I don't remember what happened then, it was too quick. And I can't fight it anymore."

The air stills around him, the trees, his own heart too. "Are you... Dead?"

A beat of silence, then quietly like a breeze. "I think I am, yes."

Air rushes out of his lungs in a curse, an apology sitting on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it back along with bile and the urge to scream. If Pidge is dead, then the other Paladins are too. It isn't too far fetched to say they were all taken down in a similar way and now are trapped in places like this. Loss isn't a feeling he recalls much, but it hits him especially hard on the chest, and he scrambles to keep his composure even as a small voice in his head starts listing off doubts and insecurities. Whatever he remembers of the other Lions is minimal, but he feels it in his bones that he can't bond with five of them, much less control them all at the same time.

He needs the Paladins. Since the very beginning, Keith's needed them. That's why there are five Lions, five Paladins, and not only one pilot for a single machine. But if Pidge is a voice inside the Green Lion's conscience, she won't be able to help him - and neither will the others.

A crack reaches his ears like he's stepped on a twig, but Keith doesn't need to look down at his feet to check because the sound was louder - like a branch breaking, or maybe even a tree. He dodges on instinct, throws his body forward and uses the placement of his hands to roll and land on a crouched position. Something wheezes past him, hot and crackling like lightning as trees behind him collapse upon impact. Keith stops for a second to catch a glimpse who's attacking him - a tall, large creature - and runs to create some distance between them.

Were this thing simply a giant armed with a sword or even a gun, Keith wouldn't be doing this, running. He would have jumped right in and tried to fight it, but this weapon is unlike any other. A scepter, perhaps, that allows him to control something he can only describe as an energy ball, which shoots away and comes hurtling back like a boomerang. Brawl isn't going to be enough for him to defeat this thing, as it won't be the only thing that will help him win this war.

A well placed log near a tree gives him enough momentum to climb it and hide among the foliage, keeping his breathing calm and slow as his lungs protest. Pidge is silent and he's thankful for that; he can't really keep a conversation and fight for his life. This thing doesn't seem to be protected much. Aside from a shoulder spaulder and arm guards decorated with spikes, the rest of the outfit is pretty simple, a skintight outfit that doesn't appear to offer much resistance against blade attacks. This is both a relief and a source of worry, because he won't need an elaborate weapon to win, but it also means this thing knows how to fight, unprotected as it is.

The tree behind him shakes and Keith realizes belatedly that the energy ball made a round in this area. He is quick to jump away before it falls, now exposed to his opponent, and prepares himself to learn more about it on the ground. It isn't as slow as expected, big and undoubtedly strong, and Keith assumes a punch from it can easily break his ribs like glass. Not only that, he has to worry about the weapon too and the energy mass that will likely scorch his skin if it makes contact.

Keith crouches and dodges and runs. There are no places to hide and observe, so he has to make it quick before he tires and becomes an easy target. He can almost hear Kolivan barking at him in the back of his mind, telling him to use his brain, to pay attention, because no challenge is ever hard enough for a member of the Blade and you've become the Prince's Champion for a reason.

The crackling ball zips above his head, whirls back towards the scepter, the creature moving forward to get him within range. Keith evades another shot by hiding behind a tree before it's ripped off the ground by the thing's bare hands, and then another one when he lies flat on the ground a safe distance away. The creature narrows its eyes at him, picks up the fallen tree to hurl it in his direction. Much too soon the energy mass floating at the tip of his weapon is recharged, and another round begins.

Three shots and a pause and -

Keith widens his eyes, ducks behind a bush and scrambles to his feet, weary. He's noticed the pattern and just in time. "Pidge! I need your help!"

"What is it?"

"I need you to keep an eye on that energy ball." He can't fight it when the weapon is fully charged, but he can try to attack it in the few seconds the thing has to stop. "Tell me where it is when my back's turned to it."

"Got it!"

With a slight shake of his limbs, he runs towards the beast as its weapon is done recharging. Keith can't mess it up. His own window of attack is too brief, so he has to be fast and make every attempt count. Either this thing goes down now, or Keith will die here and Terra will follow him close behind. The problem is, even with Pidge's help he can't make it too close to it, because the thing will attack him with anything that's within range, or will charge at him with fists that are easily twice as big as Keith's head.

Keith evades a punch that could probably knock most of his teeth away, but fails to dodge the energy ball. He lifts his arms to shield his face as it comes whirling in his direction, the shield bracelet he'd forgotten about activates, minimizing the impact but not enough to stop him from flying a couple of feet away like he weighs nothing.

His back hits a tree, hard enough to make his yelp soundlessly, and he hopes the crack he hears is just the bark about to break. Keith falls gracelessly as a heap on the ground, staring up at the swaying auroras that only make his head spin faster and his eyesight blurrier. He blinks, sluggish, digs his fingers into the soft earth beneath him and tries to gather his bearings, aware that the ground is shaking with every approaching step. The creature enters his line of sight, glares down at him and lifts its arm, the scepter, to likely split his skull in half.

"Keith!"

Pidge's urgent call makes him snap out of it and he rolls away with a grunt, every muscle in his back protesting. He picks himself up on unsteady legs, presses a hand to his face and looks at the creature, now struggling against vines and roots circling around its wide ankles and trying to snatch its wrists, snarling at every inch of plant that touches it.

"I don't know how I'm doing this." Pidge says in awe, and Keith can feel his own surprise twisting his face. "But you better hurry, because I can't tell how long this will last."

Right, of course.

Keith won't let Shiro down again.

Focus.

He sidesteps the glowing, cackling mass, keeps his eyes on the creature and heeds to Pidge's warning when the ball makes its return, crouching so it breezes above his head, burning some loose hair. Keith swallows and continues his advance, jumps away from the ball twice, blade caught in a tight grip by his side. One last time the ball comes, he drops to his knees, skids across the grass, back bent backwards. He can feel its heat on his skin, squints his eyes against the purple glow, and once it's gone, Keith shifts to his feet, grips his activated blade with both hands and thrusts it upwards, impaling the sword in the center of the beast's chest.

Its yellow eyes widen. He twists the sword for good measure, gritting his teeth as its skin and insides squelch, blood pours and touches his hands, its warmth felt through the gloves. The smell of iron fills the air, nauseating, more blood crawling up its throat and spilling from its mouth, staining sharp, uneven teeth. With a staggering backwards step, his opponent drops his weapon, the sizzling of the energy ball having ceased long ago.

Keith holds his position for a long while to make sure it stays dead, breathing hard through his mouth, before finally yanking the blade away and dragging with it more blood. The beast - nameless, raceless, it had never said anything during the fight aside from battle roars - drops heavily to its knees, swaying dangerously and eventually falling face first into the ground. Vines and roots bound around its legs and wrists inch up to wrap around the entire body, concealing it fully from view, absorbing it into the ground.

With the beast dead and gone, Keith shakes the blade to get blood off it, slips it back in its sheath when it retreats to its smaller form. The trees, the sky, it all bleeds away, Pidge's call of his name dissipating with it. In their place comes the cold, metallic interior of a large room inside the Green Lion, spots of light switching on along the floor to lead the way.

Immediately, Keith can feel every burn and ache in his body. His steps may be quiet, but they sound almost too loud in the stillness of the Lion, reverberating around him as he walks to one of the doors. The lights are off, but the Lion is fully functional, and the door slides open to let him into the cockpit that had been altered to accommodate Pidge's short stature so long ago. Upon his arrival, something on the control panel whirls and opens, a compartment he recognizes as a slot meant for their Bayards. Holding the green one tightly in his hand, he slowly walks towards it, freezing and turning when he passes by the pilot chair.

Pidge is there, sitting too poised to be truly her - but it is her, the green of the plates and the Olkari complexion of her features leave no room for doubt. Head high, hands on her lap like a princess, eyes closed. Were it not the stiffness of her posture, he would have thought she was merely sleeping, but her chest is painfully unmoving.

Inhaling deeply, Keith lifts the Bayard and aligns it with its spot on the control panel, but can't bring himself to insert it when Pidge is frozen like a statue by his side. "No," he says aloud, to Pidge's still body, to her spirit inside the Green Lion's conscience, to the Lion herself, and addresses the latter firmly. "I need your help, but I also need her help. You protected her body and soul after all these years, and so I trust that you can unite them both again."

He reaches for her hand, his own steady despite the wild beating of his heart, takes it from her lap, wraps her fingers - pliant, not stiff like a corpse's - around the Bayard. Keith exhales long and slow, inserts the weapon into the slot, pushes and turns it.

The Lion powers up again, jolts upwards, and Keith stumbles to grip the back of the seat to keep balance as the Lion roars. As one hand stays tightly curled around the backrest, the other comes up to his face to shield his eyes as light floods the entirety of the cockpit, burning bright until it shrinks on itself and concentrates around the Bayard. It stretches up the length of her arm, spreads through her body, and he waits on baited breath as the light diminishes, waits for something to happen, for her to move.

A beat of silence then a sharp intake of breath, brown eyes pop open wide as her small body lurches forward on the seat. Keith is frozen, watching as she slumps back, blinks hazily at nothing, throat working around a swallow. Her head turns - lolls, really, as if boneless in his direction and then he's moving when her lips stretch in a tiny smile.

Pidge is alive.

He may have cried aloud, he doesn't know. Keith draws her in for a hug - it's awkward, the bulkiness of her armor doesn't seem to fit in his arms, and her fingers try to curl around the skintight material of his Marmora suit, strength returning to her limbs the more they hold each other. At some point, her helmet is placed atop the control panel. When her forehead comes to rest on his shoulder, Keith can breathe a little easier, tension seeping away from his body with every steady rise and fall of her ribcage.

It gives him hope that the others can be saved, too, that all the Paladins of Voltron will be alive by the end of this, that they're all going to free Shiro from Zarkon's clutches.

Pidge pulls back, discreetly wipes her face before reaching for her helmet and slipping it on. They'll talk about it later, about her fight and her time in the Lion, about what has happened with him ever since waking up. Maybe she doesn't need help to stand and walk, but he keeps close with a hand hovering behind her back, and she doesn't seem to mind. Green moves and bows, opens her mouth to let them step outside. The clearing isn't empty anymore as it was before, a large group of Olkari stand there, watching the once powered down Lion with great range of emotions, Ryner at the front with Matt and two other whom look too much like him and Pidge.

The Lion rights herself once they set foot on the grass. Keith lets his hand rest on Pidge's spine, drawing her attention to his face, and a slight push gets her to walk towards them. They meet in the middle and the encounter prompts the others present to start celebrating, cheers and whistles replacing the calm stillness of the forest. Ryner comes to his side, close but not too much, expresses her thanks with a smile and bright eyes that make her seem years younger even with the lines on her face. He doesn't mind it when she pats his arm and inclines his head to accept her gratitude, but really, that's his job, and he tells her that.

"You came here to awaken the Green Lion so she could help you save Prince Shirogane," she says, hand still on his bicep. "Bringing Pidge back wasn't part of your job, yet you did it anyway."

Keith doesn't know what to say, so he only nods and keeps quiet until the family separates from the hug and Ryner goes talk to them. He's already planning his next move, thinking of the next tower to climb and the next province where he'll find another Lion, but his mind screeches to a halt when a small hand finds his wrist. Pidge is smiling, wide eyes red and puffy, and she tugs him away from the clearing, their audience breaking apart to let them, her family and Ryner pass, walking up the familiar path to her home. It's a relief that they are allowed to rest for the remainder of the day. Keith may be Shiro's Champion and the Black Paladin, but he's been lying stagnant for too long, and even if the Shrine of Resurrection has kept him in good shape, he lost some of his touch. The fight had been more taxing than expected and once he walks through their front door, all his muscles beg for sleep.

Their table is set for three, food long gone cold. Matt hurries to add two more plates and reheats everything as Keith is reacquainted with Sam and Colleen Holt, lets himself be guided to a chair, biting back a groan when he finally gets the chance to sit down. The food for three is split so both Pidge and Keith can have more portions, and the Holts as a whole ignore his protests that he doesn't need that much.

"You've been gone for days, Keith." Matt tells him as he adds another serving of vegetables to his plate, and his statement gives Keith something more to think about before falling asleep.

Dressed in Matt's clothes and sitting cross legged on a spare mattress in Pidge's room, Keith remembers previous visits to Olkarion and her requests to spend the night for a sleepover, but being the Champion, Keith was requested to follow Shiro around at all times. He had spent many nights standing guard and sleeping on loveseats in antechambers of Shiro's bedroom, refusing a room of his own to better perform his job or else Iverson would have his head. Shiro, most of the time, stayed awake for as long as he could to keep him company, but Keith would tell him to go to sleep close to his usual bedtime. On many occasions, he would have to carry the sleeping prince to the bed.

The memory makes his heart squeeze, and Keith rubs a hand over it like he can soothe the strange feeling.

"What are you thinking about?" Pidge plops down on her bed ungracefully, fresh out of shower, peering at him with tired eyes from behind round lenses.

Keith looks up from where he's been staring unseeingly at the blanket covering his legs. "Just reminiscing."

"Matt told me in passing that you lost your memories." She tilts her head to the side. "Is it true?"

"Yeah. I remembered some things since I saw your picture in the living room."

Pidge groans and crawls over to her pillow, and he recalls her trying to make light of her tears as she poked fun at the photograph and the little shrine. Sam and Colleen crowd the doorway to wish them goodnight, both of them watchful and caring parents, flicking the lights off after telling him to get either of them or Matt if he needs anything.

Keith lies down on his mattress, careful and slow because of his back laced with bruises, lets his eyes roam the dark ceiling. Pidge is talking, bringing up things they did in the past, filling empty slots in his head, and he chuckles, snorts or groans at the memories, until she stops talking - or until he falls asleep, he doesn't know.

* * *

He had been tired enough to fall asleep immediately, but had gone to bed too early. As result, Keith is now lying wide awake and well rested, twiddling his thumbs and listening to the sound of Pidge's breathing. He gropes around for his slate, brings it up to his face and squints at the light to check the time, around four thirty in the morning.

There's still some time before anyone wakes up, and even more hours before he can leave for his next destination. Keith pushes himself away from the bed, leaves the tablet on top of his pillow but takes the blanket with him, and navigates the house to the living room, mindful of possible creaking floorboards. Everything is dark, but he manages not to bump on anything, helps himself to a glass of water and takes it with him to the couch, sinking into the plush cushions with a sigh. It smells of lilies, a new arrangement placed beneath Pidge's picture on the wall. He sips the water, stares straight ahead and lets his mind wander.

Matt said he'd been gone for days. How long exactly he hadn't said, but long enough that his parents got home from their trip. It's safe to say time works differently inside the Lion's conscience. How slowly had the days passed for Pidge, Keith wonders and bites his lip, gripping the cool glass with both hands. A hundred years is already long enough as it is, and to her, it must have felt like an eternity.

Keith wants the other Paladins free as soon as possible, and the closest place to go to now is west of here where another Lion resides. He doesn't like the idea of taking detours, but there are eleven additional places he needs to visit and running into that man - Lotor, was it? - would be so incredibly helpful. Perhaps the Holts can point him in some directions, too. Keith doesn't know if they wandered Terra as much as that stranger claims to have, but any clue and pointer is welcome, however small they are.

Inadvertently, he finds himself mulling over the same things again, speculations and his one and only memory in which he saw Shiro. The others Paladins are a mystery to him, but Shiro is a bigger one, him and the relationship they had, a friendship that allowed close physical contact that neither seemed to mind. He wants to know what happened, wants to remember every single thing there is to their history and never wants to forget again, not Shiro, not any of the Paladins.

When Keith comes to, the room is lighter, pale sunlight streaming through the windows. Scrubbing his face with a hand and with aching eyes, it feels like he's spent the past five hours staring intently at a screen on the brightest setting. Now he feels tired, enough so that he could nap for an hour to recharge. Lights flicker alive behind him, painting a rectangle on the living room floor, and slowly he turns, squinting against it, to find Colleen at the doorway wrapped up in a fluffy robe.

"Couldn't sleep?" She asks kindly, and he may not know much about her, but she exudes a motherly aura that he doesn't shy away from. For the first time in too long, he wonders about his own family, and immediately feels swarmed in guilt. He tries to reassure himself that his priority is Shiro and that he doesn't even know where to look for them.

He stands from the couch, a little water still left in his glass, and follows her to the kitchen. "Woke up too early."

Colleen stops by the fridge to gather ingredients for their breakfast. "You can go back to sleep if you want to, Keith." He tries not to feel like he's intruding too much on their daily lives and so fills a pot with water to prepare some tea or coffee, anything to help. "You were always running on so little rest, always so bent on protecting Shiro all day long."

"I slept too much already." Her lips quirk in a smile and she seems to understand what he's trying to do. A cutting board and a knife are placed by him on the counter and she moves to the sink to wash the vegetables. "I don't want him to wait for me for longer than he already has."

"Try not to work yourself to the bone, Keith." Colleen peers at him with kind, kind eyes. He only nods, at a loss of what to say, and goes to work.

She moves about, gathering spices from the cabinet and setting the table in the dining room, and before long he has a colorful rainbow of vegetables on the cutting board, diced by his steady, skilled hands. A cup of tea is given to him, and he blows it as she heats a skillet on the stove, turning it around to evenly coat it with oil. Birds are outside, singing close to the windows of the kitchen.

Food is sizzling when she turns to him again. "Thank you for bringing Katie back to us, Keith." It's not the first time anyone says it, but it's the first time he feels more like Pidge's friend and less like a young man with too many important titles. "These past hundred years were hard on us."

He looks down at the tea, at the tiny leaves at the bottom of the cup, no words on his tongue for him to speak, but Colleen goes on, and so he only listens. "After Shiro contained Zarkon inside the Castle, the leaders of the provinces and direct family of the Paladins met. Everyone was devastated, some were enraged. The Paladins were declared lost, presumed dead - all but you, whom the Blade managed to save in the wink of time. That day was the first time I ever saw your mother's composure crumble."

Air wheezes sharply out his mouth like he'd been punched in the gut. "My mom...?"

"We all lost too much in the war, and she didn't know if you'd survive the sleep on top of it all." Colleen stirs the vegetables, turns away to give him time to pick himself up. "I hope you'll meet her soon. She's always travelling on missions."

Keith sips his tea to keep from saying anything more. Now he knows she's still alive, at least, and with the news that Pidge was recovered, it won't take long until it spreads across Terra and with it the news that he's alive. His mother will hear about it and they'll cross paths eventually. She'll understand, he thinks, hopes, why he didn't go after her in the first place.

Colleen pats the back of his hand, soft and tender, and he draws a little comfort from the gesture.

* * *

 **a/n.** _Here's the thing - I debated a lot if I should follow BotW's storyline completely and just kill them, but sheesh, I wish we had learned/seen more of the Champions, so I decided not to. I like them better alive, y'know, and the Lions behave very differently than the Divine Beasts - besides, I love exploring Keith's relationship with them._

 _The fight in the astral plane is a little detail I liked, and I tweaked the space to better fit the Green Lion. Also, the creature they're fighting is Myzax, the gladiator that lost the Champion title to Shiro._

 _(On my ao3/tumblr, you can find a link to a cool Olkari Pidge edit I found.)_

 _See ya!_


	5. eyes on the stars

**v. eyes on the stars**

* * *

Keith doesn't leave after breakfast like he had planned - they don't let him, actually, and if him staying brings Colleen a little more comfort after years of worrying, then he thinks it's worth it. He doesn't quite agree with her reasoning, that they need to repay him for going into the Green Lion and bringing Pidge back, but she's been nothing but kind to him and he can't find it in himself to disappoint her, so he stays. That's what Shiro would do if something of this magnitude happened with him around.

Pidge doesn't actually stay at home resting - and he's not surprised by that, not really - and drag hims to the lab with her dad and brother. Ryner will come to meet them at some point, he thinks, because there's much to catch up and learn, and a hundred years trapped inside a Lion's consciousness is enough reason for Pidge to camp in the lab she's so missed.

There is nothing for him to do here. Keith isn't the kind that goes poking through other people's stuff, so he keeps his hands to himself and steers clear away from anything that looks breakable and expensive - so about 80% of the lab. He finds a spot by the window to soak up some sun and watch the outside world, treetops swaying in the breeze and few birds flying past. When his eyes aren't focused on the scenery, they are turned towards the Slate, fingers flicking back and forth between pictures, trying to awaken anything inside him by looking at them one more time. As usual, they remain stubbornly locked away.

Once he gets bored of sitting around, Keith decides to watch from over their shoulders as they work. Matt and Pidge explain to him what they're doing, nothing that makes much sense to his ears, sentences full of complicated and technical jargon, but Keith nods either way and they feel encouraged to continue what they're doing.

Time seems to drag, yet he's surprised when Sam and Colleen show up, her arm looped through a basket that rests on the crook of her elbow. The Holt siblings pull away from their work table like famished beings, the hours only now catching up to them as they all occupy the seats by the window where Keith had spent most of his morning. Wrapped sandwiches, fresh fruit and bottled juice waits for them inside the basket. Colleen urges him to eat as much as he wants, pulls him into a conversation he can understand as the rest of her family delve into another debate about technology.

Ryner comes to visit them afterwards, but there isn't much Pidge can disclose to her that she hasn't already told Keith. "My memory's fuzzy still," she begins, palms pressed together and squeezed in the space between her knees. "I remember lifting off and then there was a flash? A creature showed up, it was in my head I think, I don't know. I fought it, lost and somehow became a disembodied voice inside the Lion."

A pensive silence hangs in the air. Ryner slides her eyes to Keith hoping for clarification, but he has nothing to say that will make this easier to understand, because he doesn't understand it too. This isn't something the Olkari can disassemble and study like a piece of tech. This is the doing of sentient Lions. If Sam, who took part in creating them, doesn't know how to explain this, who can?

Ryner asks more questions both to Pidge and Keith - how was it like in there? What did it look like? Did you feel any different? They answer as best as they can, but it's not of much help and it only makes them frustrated.

"If someone would know how it happened, it would be the leaders that idealized Voltron." Sam supplies from his seat across Ryner. He'd been one of the lead engineers, but had not been part of the people that came up with the concept. "But Prince Shirogane is trapped in the castle, Chancellor Iverson is dead and so is King Alfor, Lubos is gone, and we haven't heard from Balmera is decades. It also seems like Queen Luxia hasn't been the same since the fall of the Lions."

A beat of silence, then all eyes fall on Keith. He tries not to shift on his chair and knows what they'll say before anyone even opens their mouth. "You are the Prince's Champion," it's Matt who speaks. "You followed him everywhere."

It's implied. They don't need to say it outright, they don't need to elaborate. In addition, he knows that they already know the answer, but hope is the last thing to die, isn't it? Keith shakes his head minimally. "I don't recall. Sorry."

Ryner lets out a sigh, not in defeat but in resignation that they will have to keep looking for answers they might never find. "We have to keep going, for Prince Shirogane and for Terra." Keith may not know why Lubos ever decided to betray his own people, but finds that Ryner is the perfect person to lead Olkarion. She smiles at him, now standing. "Keith, Champion, Black Paladin. Olkari stands with you."

Before long, it's only him and the siblings in the lab again. Pidge and Matt dive into another one of their creations, leaving him on his own again, but looking at the same pictures on the Slate is getting on his nerves and his mind continues to be as blank as a new canvas. Keith sinks on a stool across from them and sets his chin on his hands to watch them typing away on their computers at incredible speed - until Pidge sits ramrod straight and sucks in a breath through her teeth.

The first thing that goes through his mind - and Matt's too, it seems, if his wide eyes are any indication - is that she's suffering some kind of side effect from being pulled away from the Lion's consciousness after so long. Keith is already calculating how long it will take him to move her back to Green, thoughts screeching to a halt when she reaches out to grip her brother's forearm.

"Did you ever finish that project?"

Both men blink at her quite stupidly. "What project?"

"The one with the towers," she says and elaborates when that isn't enough. "Teleportation. Remember, Matt?"

His eyes light up with recognition, but Keith remains in the dark about it. "Oh, right! We should finish it now that we can!"

And just like that, they're lost in their own little world again, leaning into each other's workspace and pointing things on the translucent screens, digital keyboards beeping softly with every key pressed. He waits for some sort of explanation, but none comes. "What are you talking about?"

Matt looks at him for just a split second, like he had forgotten Keith was there. "Oh. Well, have you seen some towers scattered around Terra? They're a product of Terra's Golden Age of Technological Advance, built a long, long time ago. Initially, they were built to allow information to be traded faster between different parts of the kingdom, but once the leaders began meeting frequently we wondered, why not make travelling faster too?"

"Of course, we have some speedy means of transportation already built. None of which can compare to the Lions, of course." Pidge continues as she hooks the tablet to a device - Keith jerks and looks at the empty pouch on his hip. When did she get her hands on the Slate? "But if we could use the towers to make portals, it would be incredibly helpful both for the leaders and for us Paladins. In times of crisis, we could've gotten to our Lions in a few minutes if it had worked."

"The only device that was compatible with the algorithm of the portals was the Voltron Slate." Matt points a finger at the tablet set between their keyboards. "We never got around to testing it and going through a portal, but it activated the circle on top of the tower."

"Our plan was to make some device that was similar enough to the Slate for us too, but we never got around to that." She shrugs, downplaying the severity of the situation. "But we can finish this now and make your job a little easier."

Matt is nodding along to every word she says, gaze never straying from the screen. "Oh, we could do something for his hoverbike too! So he could summon it at will!"

"We're geniuses!"

They describe to him the entire process behind fast travel, a mechanism developed alongside the Alteans and a brilliant, but eccentric engineer that disappeared as soon as Zarkon struck, now presumed dead. Keith leaves them to their devices once they're done talking, finds a tablet of the regular kind and a stylus, makes himself comfortable by the windows again and sketches aimlessly to pass time. A wobbly tree, a crude bird, some flower that might not even truly exist. He draws them and erases to start over again, going as far as trying to doodle both Matt and Pidge hunched over their workstations, deleting it before they can see the result.

He thinks of his lone memory of Shiro and tries to recreate it, tries to do justice to his strong jawline and the way his eyes crease when he smiles, things he remembers with sudden clarity, but gives up before he can ruin the image.

From the desk, Pidge says she'll add a new drawing feature to the Voltron Slate. He thanks her quietly. It will be good to have it when he needs a distraction.

* * *

Keith doesn't sleep so well that night. He wakes up every few hours to check on Pidge to find her bed still empty and have to force himself to fall asleep again. She's not out by herself, holed herself up in the lab with Matt, and their parents don't seem to mind it ("They used to do this a lot long ago" is what they said). Though it worries him that she's absent, he was told Terra has been quiet save for the sentries scattered about and few casualties unrelated to Zarkon, so he doesn't think anyone will make an attempt on her life. Sleep reclaims him at some point, but the cycle repeats itself.

Still, he wakes up early - later than he had yesterday, but early nonetheless, and walks into the kitchen to find Colleen halfway through cooking breakfast. Keith settles for washing the dishes and setting the table for three, stomach stirring as the mushroom and spinach cook on the skillet. Sam comes when Colleen is filling her picnic basket with food, and they share a quiet meal afterwards, the clinking of cutlery the only sound made.

The laboratory is their next destination, but first, they urge him to shower one last time before he changes into his Marmora suit. Olkari are early risers, already filling the pathways between trees and the ground, on their way to start the day. None of them crowd around him, but he can feel their curious stares watching as they head to the designed building. It's a little too late to try and do this discreetly, just in case someone tries take his life again or maybe Zarkon himself finds a way to split in two and come after him, but in his defense, Keith didn't arrive on Olkarion screaming that he was the Champion and Black Paladin.

The Green Lion, on the other hand, had been very loud upon awakening.

Pidge and Matt are slumped over their worktable, sleeping. Sam says something about spine and pain and wakes them both up, lips pressing tighter together as the siblings awake and hiss as they straighten up. Keith feels in the air that this has been a topic discussed many times, something worthy of a lecture maybe, and averts his gaze as the Holts crowd over their children. At least they don't admonish them, as Keith wouldn't know who would be more embarrassed in the aftermath: him, the siblings or the parents.

Colleen urges them to eat the meal she prepared and they occupy a vacant space of the table, Matt and Pidge slowly waking up fully. Keith eyes the Voltron Slate resting on a dock connected to one of the computers, a dark stylus resting by it. They really did add a sketchbook feature in the end, or so it seems. Finding the siblings' drowsiness somewhat contagious, he glances around the room, stops and does a double take.

"Do you remember the traveling portals?" Matt begins upon being asked just why the hoverbike is inside their laboratory. "We adapted it to fit your bike, meaning that when you're not using it, it'll be resting in that very same spot."

"This portal works with the bike, so we're confident the tower portals will work with you since it uses the same algorithm and programming." Pidge says, giddy. "Years of lack of maintenance shut the towers down, but as you reactivate them, you'll be able to fast travel between locations."

They don't launch into an explanation of the working of the portal, maybe because they already said it once, but mainly because they're both exhausted. Keith had once believed he wouldn't need as much rest after an entire century trapped in the Sleep of Resurrection, but he was wrong, and now he can see Pidge coming to the same conclusion.

Either way, this new feature applied to the hoverbike is incredibly useful. He won't have to worry about someone stealing it when he has to leave it behind for one reason or another, and he won't always be able to take it with him everywhere he goes. Terra is full plains and gentle slopes, but it also has steep inclines and cliff faces, mountains he will likely have to climb in his quest. His hoverbike can only do so much, and propelling itself upwards like the Lions can do is not one of the things it's programmed to do.

When they leave the lab, the Olkari wandering the streets are engrossed in their duties, so they don't pay much attention to them. They get to the spot where he'd left his hoverbike upon arrival, Matt and Pidge immediately flanking his sides and poking at the Slate to teach him how the fast travel feature works. It feels like he's summoning something, aiming a hologram of a circle on the ground before them and watching as it becomes clearer, more intricate with details along its border, glows blue and moves from the ground up, revealing the red coat of the hoverbike as it goes.

"I'd like to go with you," Pidge says as he settles on his ride, engines humming beneath him. "But I think I'd be a better backup here." He knows what she's talking about. It's important that someone is close to their Lion, just in case.

"Don't try to do anything reckless." The last thing he wants is for her to try to face Zarkon alone if he acts up in any way. Pidge nods her agreement with a smile and it eases some of his worries.

"Don't hesitate to contact us, Keith." Sam says, settling his hands on his daughter's shoulders once she steps back, closer to her family. "We'll help you however we can."

Keith inclines his head. "Thank you for the hospitality."

With few more shared words and some fussing from Colleen, he sets off westbound, wind in his hair and sun on his scalp. He glances back to wave at them one last time before they become too small for him to see, the distance between him and Olkarion growing, the cluster of trees seeming significantly tiny from this far.

It's a long way to Balmera. The constant sense of urgency never seems to diminish, though there isn't much he can do but live with the palpitations of his heart until the right time comes. All he can do is try to find some joy in this trip, follow the path of thin, worn out grass up and down the terrain, stopping ever so often to dispatch the groups of sentries he finds and help the few travellers harassed by them. He's rewarded with ingredients and leftover meals, currently more useful than coins. Keith stops by a small body of water to have his lunch, a serving of steamed fish wrapped in banana tree leaves, given to him by the sisters hunting for truffles he saved an hour earlier, and washes his face before resuming his journey.

Riding leaves him tired by the end of the afternoon, even if it requires less energy to expend compared to walking and running. His shoulders, arms and back ache, and Keith veers the hoverbike from the main road, seeking a relatively secluded place to spend the night. He's still close enough to Olkarion that it is easy to find fallen tree branches to start a fire, and makes a mental note to stock some wood in the compartment of his hoverbike to use in the future.

The compartment has things that weren't there before. Keith retrieves a metal tripod from within, a cookpot, more cooking utensils and a woven basket that's oddly familiar. A note is inside it, resting atop vibrant vegetables and spices. For a proper meal, the note says after some polite greeting, written in an elegant letter that can only belong to Colleen, confirmed once he reads the signature at the bottom. Keith tucks the note in a pouch; he hadn't been planning on actually cooking out in the wild, but he can appreciate the thought behind this. He types a quick thanks to Pidge and decides to save his canned food for when he runs out of fresh produce.

Keith is up before dawn breaks, rekindles the fire to reheat the simple vegetable soup from last night. The air is chilly once he unwraps the blanket from around his shoulders and returns it to the compartment, followed by the pillow, the cookpot with his other stuff and whatever was left of his food, stored in jars. He hopes to come across a lake to wash it all up.

He hits the road, resigned to another day of endless travelling. It's just his luck that he comes across a small settlement, just a handful of houses, smaller than Puig. They have an axe, though, and after making a deal, Keith is allowed to use it if he chops some wood for the pregnant wife waiting for her husband to return from business in some village up north. It's no problem really, and he's happy to help. Armed with his crossbow, he shoots down a deer, feeling his heart tug as the creature crumples to the ground, and takes it back to her house.

Keith skins and cuts the meat under the curious gaze of her son, perched on the wooden windowsill where he talks his head off, asking a million questions despite his mother's reprimands. Keith doesn't mind it either, answers the questions as best as he can without revealing too much, and is glad that they don't seem to recognize him. She's not from that generation, he thinks. She makes him stay for lunch, too.

He leaves before he's forced to stay for longer, thanking her for the help and waving goodbye to the kid before driving away. With chopped wood in his hoverbike he has one last thing to worry about for now, and Keith drives for long enough for trees to become rare and grass become sparse. Soon, the sun is hanging low in the sky and he stops by a fork in the road to decide where to go. An old wood sign points directions, the faded paint barely readable. Ahead is Balmera with its orange rock mountains; to the right is the central portion of Terra, the plateau where he woke up and further ahead, the castle. To the left, there's a steep path that leads to a mesa.

It's a promising camping spot for the night, and making his way up on his hoverbike takes a lot of effort - but he makes it, sits on it to observe the kingdom bathed in golden light as he catches his breath. Keith moves along to set up a campfire before it gets too dark. He makes a sloppy job of chopping his vegetables and chucking them into the pot, covers it with a lid and lets it simmer. The mesa is wide enough to allow him some pacing, and he circles its perimeter, eyes set on the horizon as twilight slowly but surely falls over the land.

The first stars appear, three glowing dots lined perfectly above the Castle. It tickles at something in his mind, and Keith has the Slate in hands before he can consciously register his actions.

* * *

Keith hands Shiro a cup of freshly brewed herbal tea before sitting by the campfire with him. The cook back at the Castle had given him a long list of foods the Prince does and doesn't like, and subjected him to hours of practice. He's always known how to cook; being the son of two soldiers means being alone for long hours sometimes, so Keith learned to prepare his meals from a young age. They're simple but tasty, but the cook hadn't been content with just that, ranting on about presentation and technique.

In the end, he gets the meal done, and Shiro eats it regardless if he's chopped the carrots into perfect cubes.

Shiro sips his tea and tilts his head back to look up at the sky, a small smile curving his lips. Keith traces his profile with his eyes and averts his gaze to watch the steam swirl up from his cup instead of downing most of it and burning his tongue. The Prince doesn't notice it, though, and even leans in closer to point at the sky.

"We call that one the Gladiator." Shiro traces the shape of the constellation with a fingertip, and Keith nods along. "It's a very interesting story, an old tale that I've always enjoyed reading in the library when I was younger."

He's been talking a lot about stars and celestial bodies. Never did as much inside the Castle, because duties left him with little leisure time to sit on his balcony and look at the sky at night, but now this is a routine. Keith had gotten his hands in some simple astronomy books when younger, but never delved too much into the topic like Shiro. He knows the basic stuff and likes learning more from the Prince.

Well, that is if he wouldn't get so distracted. Keith holds the Prince close to his heart, their friendship is important to him, and he always catches himself staring when Shiro animatedly talks about something he likes, his words accompanied by gestures of his hands as he retells the stories behind constellations. He locks up any voice that hints at anything, just as he ignores the playful jabs delivered by the other Paladins.

Keith is aware of what's inside him, but he doesn't need to be reminded of it constantly. It makes his job more complicated, and sometimes he hides behind the title of Champion like a coward.

Shiro is a dear friend, more even, but Keith is just his Champion.

Nothing more, nothing less.

"Hey." Keith snaps out of his musings, turns to face Shiro who is smiling at him teasingly. "Got bored of my ranting about stars again?"

"You know I'll never get tired of hearing you talk about them." He says from behind his mug, tea now gone cold. He drinks it anyway. "I just spaced out for a bit."

Shiro sighs and shakes his head, but it's all for show. "You always do this. You wound me, you know."

Keith snorts lightly. "Apologies, Your Highness. I promise to pay attention to your educational, passionate ramblings of the constellations the next time we settle down for the night."

The Prince wrinkles his nose at the title, but flushes at Keith's choice of words. Ah yes, he'd been told by the other Paladins that they tend to flirt without ever realizing it, though he doesn't know what can be considered flirting. Shiro is still floundering so Keith gently takes the empty mug from his hand and moves away to wash it quickly with some water stored in the hoverbike. By the time he's back, Shiro's gotten his bearings again.

"Think I can camp out here?" He asks, directing his eyes at Keith. "The skies around Balmera are great for stargazing before falling asleep."

Keith looks back at the tent he set a few feet away. Even if Iverson will be less than happy if he finds out about it, Keith could never deny Shiro anything. "Of course. I'll get your things."

He places the sleeping bags by the campfire, close enough that they can look at each other, but far enough for it to be proper. Sometimes these boundaries are the only things that remind him of his place.

Shiro talks until he drifts off to sleep, and Keith watches his face, lit by flames, before following closely.

* * *

The memory fades into nothingness, and Keith opens his eyes to face the night. Shiro continues to be a mystery, but the few things he remembers or is told helps him solidify an image of him Keith has in his mind. There's much to learn, much to remember.

Whereas before there was only a sense of duty to finish what he started, now there's some devotion, too. Not that there was ever any doubt he was devoted to a man like Shiro - Keith had nearly died to keep him safe, after all - but it's the first time he feels it again, stirring in his chest, pushing him forward. And it's good.

Furthermore, Shiro had taught him much about the stars, and it's something that he recalls despite his memory loss. Perhaps his mind's inability to let go of everything related to Shiro is yet another testament of a close bond. It's a feeling he can't quite shake, that there's something deeper, that Shiro wasn't - isn't just an ordinary friend, that something makes him stand apart from the other Paladins, royal position aside. All the hints are there, present in his regained memories so vividly that Keith can feel them begin to grow inside him.

Keith quickly returns to the campfire to tend to his meal before it becomes ruined. He eats looking up at the stars, recalling the endless stories Shiro told him about them.

* * *

 **a/n.** _Apologies for the long wait. I should've updated this back in November, dunno why I didn't alkfhakl_

 _The idea for the towers is that they work as the Teludav/Wormhole. Why not blend the two when I can, am I right?_

 _See ya!_


	6. hunk of the balmerans

**vi. hunk of the balmerans**

* * *

"Shit."

Of all the things going through his mind right now, that word is the loudest and most recurring. Keith pinches the bridge of his nose and bites back a frustrated scream. He hadn't gotten a wink of sleep at night and the trip that followed had left him exhausted, but this... This is precisely what he doesn't need to deal with right now.

The rocks piled high and blocking the path mock him. Keith throws his head back to scowl at the sky, folding his hands into fists when they begin tingling with annoyance, seeking an outlet to his frustration. This will hinder his progress and slow him down, and he briefly considers going somewhere else, either Mer or Altea, but decides against it. Sooner or later, he will have to find a way to get in Balmera, and it will be best to get it over with now than have to live dreading the day he will have to return to this province.

He dismounts his hoverbike and messes with the Slate, making use of the Holts' new feature to send his bike back to their lab. It disappears in a flash of blue, and he's left staring at the empty spot for a while, knowing he'll have to call it back and forth if he needs to camp out in the mountains. The sun is still fairly high, and he hopes he will make it to the top before nightfall.

Keith approaches the rocks and begins the arduous task of climbing, pulling himself up and trying to find secure spots to grab onto and place his feet. It's tiring, the heat makes it twice as unpleasant, and he stops whenever he finds a relatively flat place to catch his breath and fan his face. His bangs and stray locks of hair cling to his damp skin, beads of sweat trickling down his temples and dripping off the curve of his nose and chin.

There's barely any shade. The rocks are bare of vegetation, and he misses the coolness of Olkarion and its tall trees and lush grass. Keith presses himself to the wall when the sun gets too much to bear, but the rocks are so hot they burn his skin through the fabric of his uniform, and he pulls away with a hiss. His water and other supplies are stored in the bike, so he won't have access to them unless he reaches the top. Were his hands bare, they would be raw right now after all the climbing, covered in tiny red lacerations. His fingers are sore, aching.

He makes it just as the sun begins to set. The temperature drops with the sun and soon he can see his breaths condensing before his face, shivers racking his whole body. In the distance, dim lights catch his attention, and he calculates how long it will take to reach civilization as he falls asleep.

Keith finds that he only gets a break of extreme temperatures at sunrise and sunset. He's running out of water, so he takes mindful sips from the bottle hidden in his pouch only when his throat is so parched he starts to cough. The main city isn't very far, now, and he can see some Balmerans wandering the lower levels of the rockside, slipping into tunnels, carrying glittering gems in carts.

X-95-Vox, as supplied by the Slate, is the capital of the Balmera region, surrounded by settlements smaller than the villages he's seen so far along the way. It is unlike Olkarion, in which its inhabitants occupy only one city, making the Olkari's capital bigger in comparison. As it is, X-95-Vox is an ensemble of simple, adobe houses set around a literal hole in the ground, a path spiraling downwards, leading to many cave-like entrances. It looks much like a barren land, and instead of bushes of vegetation, glowing blue crystals grow across the land.

It makes a pretty picture, but Keith is more focused on the face carved out of rocks that he can see on the cliffside behind the hole. He steps away from his hiding spot behind some boulders, closer to the edge of the outcropping he climbed earlier, to study it as best as he can from a distance. The features, the friendly smile. Keith knows who it is before his mind can stir, before the sight tickles at something long buried in some dark part of his head.

This is Hunk, the Paladin of the Yellow Lion.

* * *

Someday, Keith hopes, he will get used to the sweltering heat of Balmera. The air is just as dry as the soil, and it strokes his face like flaming fingers as he rides his hoverbike up the road to where the Yellow Lion could be spotted from X-95-Vox. He parks a careful distance from her, retrieves the gift basket from the compartment, and walks towards her quickly to seek refugee from the scorching sun under the large shade she casts.

Yellow sits tall, her large armored frame projecting a cool shadow on her Paladin. Hunk has an array of tools and equipments surrounding him as he tinkers away at a device, head bobbing to a song only he can hear. He looks up when Keith stops close by, feet kicking a few pebbles away, the sound of their scattering rousing the Balmeran from his work. Keith notes distantly that Hunk is unbothered by the weather, as to be expected. He wonders how he would feel like if he were to spend days in Olkarion where the temperature is cooler, or in Mer where the air is humid and salty.

Hunk stands quickly, wipes his hands in his trousers and claps him heartly on the back. "You're late." He's smiling wide, though, so Keith knows he doesn't mind it.

"We took a few detours." He supplies, lifting the bask to catch the Balmeran's attention. "Shiro wanted to visit some landmarks nearby."

His friend takes it from his hand and beckons him to sit on the worn out blanket. Pushing the equipments aside, Hunk sets down the woven linen basket and opens it to go through the contents. "There's much around Terra that he hasn't seen yet." He muses, unraveling the parchment paper from around a loaf of bread. "It's cool that he gets to travel around with you. I imagine he can't do it on the daily, being a prince and all."

Silently, Keith agrees. Up until now, Shiro had only explored whatever cities and villages he visited in diplomatic meetings. Everything in between, the mountains and plains and ruins, he only got to see from the inside of heavily secured land rovers. It had been hard to convince Iverson to let them take hoverbikes in this trip, and Shiro makes sure to use this permission thoroughly.

Keith watches as Hunk comments and appraises the ingredients they brought from the Castle. He's got an affinity for culinary just as he's got one for mechanics, and Shiro is always happy to give him things for his experiments in the kitchen. Balmera itself only produces few plants underground, which they use their roots for cooking, along with insects that hide in the tunnels. They have some trading routes going, gems and minerals for fresh produce and spice, but Hunk only gets the finer things when he meets with the Prince and his Champion.

He looks up at the Yellow Lion, watching over Balmera and X-95-Vox like a guardian. Like all other Lions, she seems to fit well into the place that's become her residence.

Hunk is sniffing at a jar of Altean curry spice when Keith speaks. "Have you unlocked any new abilities?"

That's part of his role as pilot of the Black Lion, to make sure everything is going well with his other fellow Paladins and their Lions. Personally, Keith thinks he sucks at it, but Shiro has confidence in his abilities for the both of them. He believes that Keith can be the leader Shiro wants him to be, and that might be the only reason why Keith is still doing this. He can't possibly let Shiro down, now, can he?

Hunk fiddles with the jar nervously. "I haven't."

It's good that he's honest about it, that he isn't making any new skill up just so he can brag about it later like Lance. Keith can't say he's pleased with the progress that isn't being made, but he knows he can't blame the Balmeran for it. Hunk had been as hesitant to accept this role as Keith had been and, like the other Balmerans, he's more of a pacifist than a fighter. The bonds every Paladin share with their Lions grow at different paces, and Hunk might be one that needs a little more time than the others.

Keith pats his shoulder in a sign of good faith. He's gotten better, stronger and more courageous from the man he was when it all began, and Keith shares Shiro's belief that Hunk will only continue to grow.

Hunk gives him a grateful smile, a brief little thing that is substituted by a frown when he looks at the endless stretch of land in the distance. "Keith? Do you sometimes question your place as a Paladin?"

"More than you can imagine." And isn't that the truth? Keith had never aimed for the Black Lion as all he wanted - still wants, is to just keep Shiro safe. "But Shiro thought Yellow would accept you and he was right, so I really don't think there's someone out there better for the job than you ."

When Hunk looks at him again, he seems surer of himself.

* * *

"You!"

Keith jerks, whirls around to find four Balmerans pointing spears at him. If something else happened after he reassured Hunk, he won't remember it now. His instincts have him reaching for his knife, and halfway he remembers he's not supposed to fight these people, so he lifts his hands in surrender.

The group herds him to the cluster of adobe houses down below, the tips of their spears only an inch away from grazing his back. Their actions don't match the few things he just recalled, the peaceful nature of these beings, but he supposes much has changed in the hundred years since Zarkon struck the land. He lets himself be taken further into town, beating down his impatience at his current predicament, observing the Balmerans that lingers close to buildings and watch as he passes.

His destination is a house slightly larger than the others, decorated with colorful paintings and crystals like its neighbors. Keith had been expecting to see some kind of military setting inside, maybe even a simple throne room, but what he finds is a cozy living room decorated with mismatching pieces of furniture that make his tired bones want to rest.

The commotion attracts a Balmeran from an adjacent room. The frown on their face deepens when they see him. "Rax," one of the Balmerans behind Keith says, poking their spear at his ribs. "We found this outsider on the outskirts of the city."

"What are you doing here?" Rax asks him, stepping much too close to his orbit. "Couldn't you see outsiders aren't welcome in Balmera?"

Keith had thought the rocks blocking the path were just the product of a landslide, but in hindsight, he should've known better. Sam Holt had said the Olkari haven't heard of the Balmerans in decades, after all. "I'd like to talk to your leader."

"You have no rights to demand anything."

He breathed in deeply to settle his sudden wave of annoyance. And here had Keith thought he had asked him politely, not demanded. "It's urgent."

"What could be so urgent that you'd come here uninvited?"

"The Yellow Lion." Someone behind him jerks with a gasp, the tip of their weapon digging into his back. "I have to finish what we started years ago."

The animosity Rax displayed sways as they look at Keith like he's grown another pair of arms, but it quickly returns, deep lines marking their face. "What are you trying to imply?" They say, sneers really, and steps even closer to Keith to stare him down. Balmerans, Keith notices as he tries to ignore the discomfort of having a stranger in his personal space, are taller than the Olkari. "That you are one of the Paladins of Voltron?"

Keith's brows inch up his forehead as he returns Rax's stare. The Balmerans behind him begin to murmur, but Keith can only focus on the scowl that twists the face of the one standing before him. "No," he says evenly, shoulders squared and spine straight. He refuses to bend under this attempt at intimidation. "I'm not implying that. I am one of the Paladins."

"Is this some kind of sick joke to you?" Rax's harsh rhetoric catches Keith so out of guard he can only blink at them rather stupidly. "Coming all the way here pretending to be one of the Paladins? They are all dead. You are disrespecting us by pretending to be someone you clearly are not."

Keith grits his teeth. He may not know many things, but this he knows. Iverson wouldn't have lied to him. "I am the Black Paladin." In response to his words, all the spears behind him poke at his back, but he's confident he can disarm them if it comes to it.

"No, the Black Paladin died defending Prince Shirogane. The Blades were lying when they said they saved him."

He glares at Rax, not bothering to mask his irritation at the Balmeran. The pointed tips dig painfully at his ribs and his hand itches for a fight, his rising temper soon to get out of control. What does Keith know of the Blades? Only that they did take him to the Shrine, and that he had been part of it once. He can't help but feel offended by his words.

"If the Black Paladin had been saved, he would have come back already." Rax continues, unflinching under the weight of Keith's glare. "So he's either dead, or he's a coward."

The logical part of Keith's brain can understand where this is coming from. A hundred years living in fear, waking up every day not knowing if it would be your last, not knowing if Shiro would finally lose his grip on Zarkon. Colleen said a meeting was held after the fall and they were told he had been saved - did they all know the details behind his survival? Being placed in a pod that took away his memories, wiped his mind clean of people and places he used to know, left him only with muscle memory and a vague understanding of himself? A pod they weren't sure would work in the first place.

Keith is no coward. He didn't take long to return because he was hiding, he took long because he had a foot through death's door when they made it to the Shrine.

The air crackles with tension, and Rax looks just as ready to throw punches as Keith is. In this moment, he will gladly throw rationality to the wind and indulge the Balmeran if they lunge, because his own body is taut and coiled with nervous energy, seeking an outlet. The Balmerans behind him step away, withdraw their weapons, and Keith readies himself for a fight right here in the middle of this cozy living room.

"Rax!"

The Balmeran in question staggers back, shock coloring their features for a split moment. Some of the anger in their gaze seeps away as they focus their eyes on the newcomer, exasperation flowing off the new Balmeran in waves as they come to stand between them. They level rax with a sad, disappointed stare before turning yellow eyes on Keith.

And they look at him apologetically, lips curved in a serene smile and shoulders drooping. "Please, forgive my brother. He's taken... Precautions since the Yellow Lion went haywire." Their hand is gentle on his arm, calming. "I'm his sister. I can help you if you need."

Keith knows better than to question their motives, even if blocking the path to Balmera doesn't make much sense to him. He smiles at her in what he hopes is a reassuring manner, and she seems satisfied that he hasn't taken offense. With her in the room, the Balmerans that brought him here finally disperse, leaving the three alone.

Rax still doesn't look pleased, but he steps back down now that his sister has interfered. With a huff, he storms and follows the others outside, the door left wide open in his wake. Keith is taken to the kitchen after she closes the door with a sigh, taking notice of the plaid curtains that frame the window. They sit still, no wind here in Balmera to cool those unused to the heat.

As she goes about filling a pot with water and taking a jar from the cabinet to make some tea, Keith prepares to take one pressing issue out of the way. "I'm sorry to say this, but I don't remember who you are."

The Balmeran looks at him from over her shoulder and she's calm despite his admission. He thinks she believes him, even when her brother was so skeptical. Either that, or she's humoring him. "I do believe it is to be expected. We were only kids when it all happened, and memories wane with time." He hums at that. She busies herself with filling an infuser with what appears to be dried roots before dropping it into the hot water. "But do you remember Hunk?"

"I remembered a few things once I arrived in X-95-Vox and saw his face carved out of stone."

She turns around, hands neatly folded before her. "You remembered?"

"I lost my memories in the Slumber of Restoration." He confesses, and wonders how many times he'll have to repeat this aloud. "I was given names and a purpose, but my past is a blank slate in my head. Some things return to me as I see and visit places, like his sculpture or Pidge's statue in Olkarion."

"You have been there already." Keith nods, and she touches a hand to her chin. "So it means you forgot most things about Prince Shirogane. That is too bad, you two had a beautiful relationship from what I heard."

He swallows dryly, waits as she pours tea into hand-painted clay mugs and sets one of them before him. She's not the first to say it, and likely won't be the last. "I'm sure it will all come back to you." She says kindly, patting his hand. "I am Shay, by the way."

"Thank you for your help, Shay. I'm Keith, Prince Shirogane's Champion." Keith cradles the mug in his palms and lets it go shortly after, the heat too much for him to bear. "I'm looking for your leader or Hunk's immediate family to aid me."

Shay hums thoughtfully, staring at her drink. "We do not really have a leader. Rax has taken some matters into his hands regarding safety, but he is not a leader, per se. As for Hunk's family, they moved out of X-95-Vox shortly after his fall. It is a long way from here if you are interested in going." She taps the edge of her mug, purses her lips. "My grandmother was the Balmeran representative when they were first developing Voltron. She passed away, but she used to tell me a few things regarding the meetings."

Keith sips his tea, still hot and strong, ginger burning its way down his throat. "I'm glad I found you. Do you happen to have his Bayard? I'll need it when I go see the Yellow Lion."

"Yes, his family left it with grandmother. I will get it for you."

Her chair scrapes the floor lightly as she stands, and he watches her leave with a small, thankful curve of his lips that passes as a smile. Keith is indeed lucky for having run into her for help, because if she hadn't appeared, he wouldn't have put it past Rax to drag him all the way back to the open field. The only issue is that she doesn't seem to have known Hunk personally, and if she had, her memories of him are fuzzy at best, so she can't really say anything that will help him uncover more of his past.

She returns not too long after, setting a wooden box in front of him on the table and urging him to open it with a nod. He twists and removes the already opened padlock, lifts the lid slowly like he's unveiling a priceless treasure which, really, it is. The Yellow Bayard sits in there by itself, harmless in its deactivated form.

Keith takes it in hand with care, and already the weight of a Bayard in his grasp feels familiar. He turns it around like he'll find some inscription or secret, looks around the kitchen and sees in his mind's eye Hunk leaning on the counter, looking uncertain in his paladin armor, staring forlorny down at the first tray of baked goods he managed to burn in years. Just like that vision of Pidge in her room, it dissipates with a blink, and he comes back to his senses to find Shay watching him intently.

Clearing his throat, Keith returns the Bayard to the box and closes the lid, lightly places his hands on both sides of it afterwards. "Thank you again, Shay. Can you tell me where the Yellow Lion is?"

"I can take you there," she offers immediately, but then pauses. "Would you not like to rest, though? It has been a long day for you, and you can sleep on my bed if you are okay with it. And before you worry, I can sleep in Rax's room."

He considers it and nods. As much as Keith wants to charge head on and free Hunk right now, he can't deny he needs to rest, especially now that he knows he will probably fight something in the Lion's conscience. Now that he's been offered a comfortable bed to sleepin, his body is reminded of its exhaustion, and all of his limbs feel twice as heavy at once, begging to be recharged. All the climbing tired him for days, as he can still feel the strain in his arms if he focuses on it for too long.

Keith's going to repay her hospitality, however. Like he'd done at the Holts, he offers to help with dinner, washing and peeling colorful tubers as Shay leaves to change the sheets of her bed for him. He picks at the ribbons of pink and yellow skin, waiting for the water to boil and for more instructions. Upon returning, Shay says it's her grandmother's special soup for special visits, and he tries not to wonder what makes up the jars of spices lined neatly on the windowsill, and why she puts so much of them in the pot.

Rax seems less than happy to see him there when he returns, but just as he doesn't complain, he doesn't say anything either. Shay tries to alleviate the situation by bringing up topics that seem to interest him, but his responses are clipped and straight to the point. Keith admires her for trying, because he would have given up on his first try were he in her place, if he ever tried at all.

With the dishes washed and dried, Shay points him to the bathroom and then her room. He is quick to shower and bids them goodnight, receiving only one reply, and closes the door of the bedroom quietly. Keith doesn't look around too much. It had been okay to inspect Pidge's room, having known her before and looking for lost memories, but Shay is a nice stranger - now acquaintance, who he doesn't know well enough to do snooping around. So he beelines for the bed and slips under the thin sheets, and consciousness leaves him quickly.

The sun rises and with it comes the insufferable heat. Keith wakes up with perspiration dotting his hairline and the sheets plastered to his back, and it's a bad way to start his day. Showering will only help until he leaves the house - which will be soon - so he settles for simply washing his face and neck to cool down, struggling to put on his skintight Blade suit after he's done.

Rax is in the kitchen alone, flitting about preparing breakfast, and Keith hovers by the doorway for a moment before pushing inside and offering help. Surprisingly, the Balmeran accepts it, passing him a bowl of _something_ that Keith sets on the table, and they work in uncomfortable silence until Shay enters the kitchen and her presence alone makes them both at ease. She joins her brother by the wood oven and Keith is left to watch the tea as it infuses.

With breakfast eaten and thanks voiced, Shay does as promised and takes him to the Yellow Lion, Rax walking alongside them, still reluctant to have Keith going so close to it. Some Balmerans outside their homes stare at him and whisper, the sight of an outsider understandably meaning bad news.

He's not at all surprised when they stop at the edge of the hole. The wooden fence around it hadn't been visible from a distance, and he looks over it down below, at the Yellow Lion sitting immobile, its protective barrier gleaming under the morning sun. Sweat's already gathered at his temples and upper lip, and Keith wipes it away futilely, Bayard clutched tightly in his hand. Adrenaline is already running in his bloodstream in anticipation to what can happen in there, the drum of his heart echoing in his ears.

Keith turns to the siblings and takes a step closer to the path leading downwards. "Thank you for your help."

"What are you going to do in there?" Rax asks, less harsh than he'd probably intended.

"The same thing I did last time, and hopefully it will work again."

"Good luck, Keith, and be careful."

With a final nod at Shay, he turns and walks to the Yellow Lion.

* * *

The Balmeran representative pushes him gently towards the room, and Keith catches her smile before she closes the door. It's some kind of conference room for the Balmerans, chairs lined neatly, facing the raised floor where their Elder Council sits on the long table to discuss matters that interest the province. Keith would have thought he were alone hadn't they told him the Yellow Paladin was waiting here for him, and said Paladin sits in the far corner of the room, his outfit shuffling with every bounce of his leg.

He walks to his new teammate, noting the wringing hands, tense shoulders, every little sign that indicates this man isn't at ease. The bouncing of the leg stops once Keith's feet come into view, now covered by the Paladin armor he had been crammed into as soon as the Black Lion responded to him. Keith is unused to its weight still, and misses his simple Blade suit.

Hunk of the Balmerans looks up at him, the creases of worry on his forehead not diminishing the kindness in his yellow eyes. He gives Keith a wane smile and pushes up to his feet, standing taller than him like other Balmerans. Keith takes the initiative, offering a hand for a friendly shake that Hunk takes firmly with a squeeze to hide the slight tremor of his limbs.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Keith."

"I'm Hunk," he says, fisting his hands by his sides when Keith lets it go. "You're Prince Shirogane's Champion, aren't you?"

"I am."

"Great, great. That's great."

Keith takes a moment to observe Hunk, and his disquiet is almost palpable. He's been paying attention to how Shiro handles meetings and these situations, and though it has been helpful and insightful, Keith is still too blunt and awkward for a leadership role. The Prince reassures him he knows the right things to say, but his problems lie in the way he words his sentences. So Keith lets the silence drag on as he tries to find the correct way to appease Hunk and notices belatedly that the stillness has made the Balmeran more unsettled.

"Nervous?" He settles for saying, because even though it lacks finesse and a motivational speech, he gauges that Hunk just needs a way to vent, someone he knows he can trust with his worries. And well - Keith is sure that can be found in the Black Paladin job description.

"Uh, yeah." Hunk taps the tips of his fingers together. "This is a lot of - of responsibility. And courage, too. I mean, it's needed because, y'know, we're going to face a legendary evil, put our lives on the line to protect Terra and all - all that."

He falls quiet, dips his head to focus on his restless hands, and Keith tilts his head minimally to the side as he considers the words. He'd been apprehensive too, still is if he can be honest with himself, and had trusted his fears to Shiro only once. The memory of endless support brings a smile to his lips, and Keith smothers it quickly before Hunk can take notice. Words spoken by Shiro in the courtyard stick with him more than any other when it comes to that moment when Black had moved to allow him entrance, but his mind supplies him with something the Prince said later.

"You won't be alone." Keith recites, recalls what Shiro said once they were alone staring at the Paladin armors, black and white set side by side. "I'll be there, too. You can count on me."

The words aren't his own, but it's the right thing to say. Hunk grins, a little steadier than before, and launches into a conversation excitedly.

* * *

 **a/n.** _I'm going back and fixing a few things that don't seem good to me anymore. Nothing major though, just some wording problems._

 _Balmera/X-95-Vox are supposed to be the equivalent of Gerudo Desert/Gerudo Town. I know I've taken a long time to update, and tbh I haven't written much for this these past weeks, but this fic is still one of my babies. It doesn't get as much attention as other on-going fics, but it's an AU that's dear to me._

 _Hope you enjoyed!_


End file.
